WASHINGTON: Documents ripped up, stuffed down the toilet or carted off to Florida — the list of former US leader Donald Trump’s alleged flouting of laws on preserving presidential papers grew longer and more bizarre on Thursday.

Trump’s shredding of many previously accepted norms of presidential decorum was part of his populist attraction to Republican supporters. But now the National Archives, which is in charge of preserving presidential records, reportedly wants Trump investigated over, among other things, his habit of literally tearing up White House papers while in office.

According to The Washington Post, the Archives requested the Justice Department open a probe into Trump’s practices.

This came after the government records office confirmed on Monday that it had recovered 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s Florida estate, taken with him when he left Washington following his reelection defeat.

Among the documents were official correspondence with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un — “love letters,” as Trump described them at the time. Similarly included in the Florida stash was a letter outgoing president Barack Obama had left for Trump in the Oval Office.

Last week, the Archives confirmed reports that Trump had torn up documents, some of which have since been taped back together.

Under the 1978 Presidential Records Act (PRA), which was passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, US presidents are required to transfer all emails, letters and other work documents to the National Archives.

Trump denies any wrongdoing. In a statement on Thursday, he characterised his dealings with the Archives as “without conflict and on a very friendly basis.”

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2022