Former President Donald Trump‘s habit of destroying documents didn’t stop at tearing them up. The Washington Post has reported that Trump also used burn bags. The torn-up documents would be stuffed into bags to be incinerated at the Pentagon.
The bags look like paper bags found at most grocery stores. The CIA and NSA often utilize burn bags to dispose of top-secret information because it is more reliable than shredding.
Under the Presidential Records Act, every President is required to turn in all records from their administration at the end of their term. Records include memos, letters, emails and papers that the President touched.
Trump staffers would hurry into the room after the President left and pick up the pieces of torn documents. Then, they would be responsible for putting the pieces back together and deciding which documents should be preserved, said a senior Trump White House Official.
“We got Scotch tape, the clear kind,” former aide Solomon Lartey told Politico in 2018. “You found pieces and taped them back together and then you gave it back to the supervisor.”
Taped-together documents were sent to the National Archives and recently turned over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
