The Post's View Opinion Documents weren’t the only things Trump tore up while in office Former president Donald Trump speaks at a rally on Jan 15 in Florence Ariz Ross D Franklin AP By Editorial Board Feb 9 2022 at 4 35 p m EST Former president Donald Trump liked the feel of tearing things up — figuratively as he did with laws and norms of public service but also literally as he did with documents that he was required to preserve under the Presidential Records Act Having refused to give his elected successor a smooth and orderly transition Mr Trump then skulked away to Mar-a-Lago in Florida with 15 boxes of official documents and mementos that should have gone to the National Archives Opinions to start the day in your inbox Sign up The Post reported this past weekend that Mr Trump routinely destroyed briefing papers schedules articles letters and memos ripping them into quarters or smaller pieces leaving the detritus on his desk in the Oval Office in the trash can of his private West Wing study or on the floor of Air Force One Mr Trump’s aides were left to retrieve the pieces and piece them back together sometimes hunting through special “burn bags” intended for classified material to find torn documents that needed to be reassembled and preserved Recently the committee investigating the Jan 6 insurrection received documents from the National Archives and Records Administration NARA that appeared to have been torn apart and taped back together Mr Trump broke the law After President Richard M Nixon’s resignation Congress passed a number of laws intended to preserve the integrity of documents and other materials from Nixon’s presidency and made the laws applicable to all future presidents The Presidential Records Act of 1978 ended the practice of records belonging to former presidents and declared that the United States shall “reserve and retain complete ownership possession and control of presidential records ” The law requires a president to “take all such steps as may be necessary” to make sure the records are preserved — an important pillar of accountability in a democracy and also essential for historical understanding of the presidency Mr Trump cannot plead ignorance He was warned about the legal requirements by White House counsel Donald McGahn and by two chiefs of staff Reince Priebus and John F Kelly Internal memos to the White House staff also warned in 2017 that destroying presidential records is a federal crime On Wednesday The Post reported that NARA had asked the Justice Department to examine Mr Trump’s handling of the records Also the National Security Archive a nonprofit research group at George Washington University that filed lawsuits earlier seeking to protect documents of the Trump era and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington a nonprofit government accountability group sent a letter this week to the Justice Department calling for an investigation Unfortunately the records act lacks teeth although other laws impose criminal penalties for willful destruction of records As Tom Blanton director of the nonprofit archive group put it in 2020 we must “prevent any bonfire of records in the Rose Garden ” Mr Trump who mercilessly attacked Hillary Clinton for using a private email server turned out to be a slovenly steward of the people’s property He regarded himself as above the law but he was not What’s left of the jigsawed and taped-up pages might not provide the thoroughgoing record of his presidency that the law demands but they are a wrenching testament to his penchant for wanton destruction The Post’s View About the Washington Post Editorial Board Editorials represent the views of The Washington Post as an institution as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom Members of the Editorial Board and areas of focus Deputy Editorial Page Editor Karen Tumulty Deputy Editorial Page Editor Ruth Marcus Associate Editorial Page Editor Jo-Ann Armao education D C affairs Jonathan Capehart national politics Lee Hockstader immigration issues affecting Virginia and Maryland David E Hoffman global public health Charles Lane foreign affairs national security international economics Heather Long economics Molly Roberts technology and society and Stephen Stromberg elections the White House Congress legal affairs energy the environment health care