Trump Rips Up Papers When He’s Done With Them, Staffers Tape Them Back Together

SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE - JUNE 11: In this handout provided by the Singapore's Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) shows U.S. President Donald Trump (center L) with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loon... SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE - JUNE 11: In this handout provided by the Singapore's Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) shows U.S. President Donald Trump (center L) with Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (R) on June 11, 2018 in Singapore, Singapore. The historic meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been scheduled in Singapore for June 12 as the world awaits the landmark summit in the Southeast Asian city-state. (Photo by Singapore's Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI)/via Getty Images) MORE LESS
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The job of the records management analysts working in the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House has changed considerably under the Trump administration, according to a Sunday Politico report.

A position that previously involved reviewing, sorting and filing official documents reviewed by the President under previous administrations now requires staffers who are handy with scotch tape and have a keen eye for reassembling documents that have been physically torn apart by President Donald Trump, according to two former staffers who spoke to Politico.

As career staffers who were abruptly forced to resign earlier this year, Solomon Lartey and  Reginald Young Jr. told Politico that they were paid nearly $66,000 a year to tape back together official documents that went through the Oval Office. Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House has to send any document the President touches to the National Archives— a task that proved to be more grueling under a president who has an iron-willed habit of ripping up papers when he’s done with them.

According to Politico, White House aides learned early on that they couldn’t convince Trump to break his paper-ripping habit. Instead, aides reportedly clean up Trump’s paper scraps — which range from papers that are torn in two and thrown in the trash to documents that have been ripped into tiny pieces that resemble confetti and tossed on the floor — and ship them over to the records office, according to the people familiar with the task. Lartey described one letter that Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had sent the President that was ripped “into tiny pieces.”

We had to endure this under the Trump administration,” Young told Politico. “I’m looking at my director, and saying, ‘Are you guys serious?’ We’re making more than $60,000 a year, we need to be doing far more important things than this. It felt like the lowest form of work you can take on without having to empty the trash cans.”

Read the full report here.

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