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View Full Version : Meet the guys who tape Trump's papers back together




Zippyjuan
06-10-2018, 06:20 PM
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/10/trump-papers-filing-system-635164


The president's unofficial 'filing system' involves tearing up documents into pieces, even when they're supposed to be preserved.

Solomon Lartey spent the first five months of the Trump administration working in the Old Executive Office Building, standing over a desk with scraps of paper spread out in front of him.

Lartey, who earned an annual salary of $65,969 as a records management analyst, was a career government official with close to 30 years under his belt. But he had never seen anything like this in any previous administration he had worked for. He had never had to tape the president’s papers back together again.

Armed with rolls of clear Scotch tape, Lartey and his colleagues would sift through large piles of shredded paper and put them back together, he said, “like a jigsaw puzzle.” Sometimes the papers would just be split down the middle, but other times they would be torn into pieces so small they looked like confetti.

It was a painstaking process that was the result of a clash between legal requirements to preserve White House records and President Donald Trump’s odd and enduring habit of ripping up papers when he’s done with them — what some people described as his unofficial “filing system.”

Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records.

But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice. Instead, they chose to clean it up for him, in order to make sure that the president wasn’t violating the law.

Staffers had the fragments of paper collected from the Oval Office as well as the private residence and send it over to records management across the street from the White House for Larkey and his colleagues to reassemble.

“We got Scotch tape, the clear kind,” Lartey recalled in an interview. “You found pieces and taped them back together and then you gave it back to the supervisor.” The restored papers would then be sent to the National Archives to be properly filed away.

Lartey said the papers he received included newspaper clips on which Trump had scribbled notes, or circled words; invitations; and letters from constituents or lawmakers on the Hill, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“I had a letter from Schumer — he tore it up,” he said. “It was the craziest thing ever. He ripped papers into tiny pieces.”

Lartey did not work alone. He said his entire department was dedicated to the task of taping paper back together in the opening months of the Trump administration.

One of his colleagues, Reginald Young Jr., who worked as a senior records management analyst, said that during over two decades of government service, he had never been asked to do such a thing.

“We had to endure this under the Trump administration,” Young said. “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.”

The White House did not comment on the president’s paper-ripping habit. According to Young and Lartey, staffers in the records department were still designated to the task of taping together the scraps as recently as this spring.

Lartey and Young described a system that stands in stark contrast to how records management was conducted under the Obama administration, which ran a structured paperwork process.

“All of the official paper that went into [the Oval Office], came back out again, to the best of my knowledge,” said Lisa Brown, who served as President Barack Obama’s first staff secretary. “I never remember the president throwing any official paper away.”

Brown described a regimented process for dealing with presidential records. She said all paper that was going to the president “would go in a folder with labels — one color for decision memos, for example, and another one for letters. Documents would go out to the president and then come back to the staff secretary’s office in the same folder for distribution and handling. It was a really structured process.”

Brown said Obama had an eye on preserving documents for history — even ones he was not technically required to send to the National Archives. “I remember the day he sent down to me his race speech from the campaign, handwritten,” she said. “All of the campaign material didn’t need to come into the White House or go to Archives.”

Trump, in contrast, does not have those preservationist instincts. One person familiar with how Trump operates in the Oval Office said he would rip up “anything that happened to be on his desk that he was done with.” Some aides advised him to stop, but the habit proved difficult to break.

Despite the president’s apparent disregard of the Presidential Records Act, sources said, aides around him have tried to take an overly inclusive approach to what would be considered a presidential record.

Anything that’s not purely personal — even just a note handed to an aide at a rally that was passed on to Trump — has been considered a record deemed worthy of being sent to records, where staffers could make sure the White House was being compliant with the law.

That team is now smaller, after many of the career officials were cleared out earlier this year.

More at link.

timosman
06-10-2018, 06:27 PM
This guy should be paid more. :cool:

Dr.3D
06-10-2018, 06:39 PM
Sounds like Trump needs a paper shredder, especially in his private residence.

Some things are of a personal nature and don't need to be "archived."

I seem to remember Hillery discussing her personal emails and how she wanted those destroyed instead of being in an archive.

oyarde
06-10-2018, 06:55 PM
I would make them empty the trash and wash the Limo too . 60k is too much . They are being overpaid .

timosman
06-10-2018, 06:56 PM
I would make them empty the trash and wash the Limo too . 60k is too much . They are being overpaid .

How old are you, grandpa?

thoughtomator
06-10-2018, 06:57 PM
Given that this is from POLITICO, there is a very significant chance that it is pure fiction.

oyarde
06-10-2018, 07:01 PM
How old are you, grandpa?

Great Grandpa was doing a lot more work than that in 1982 for 14,905.80 per yr in the private sector. Slackers and cry babies need to be producing more . The people deserve more for the money from public servants .

kcchiefs6465
06-10-2018, 07:17 PM
Great Grandpa was doing a lot more work than that in 1982 for 14,905.80 per yr in the private sector. Slackers and cry babies need to be producing more . The people deserve more for the money from public servants .
Zippy's point was more that Trump shouldn't be shredding these papers, not that these archivers were making too much.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that maybe they should get real goddamn jobs.

Here's to hoping Donald Trump fires their asses for being whiny little bitches... Making 65k a year to play junior detectives. Sad!

oyarde
06-10-2018, 07:21 PM
Zippy's point was more that Trump shouldn't be shredding these papers, not that these archivers were making too much.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that maybe they should get real goddamn jobs.

Here's to hoping Donald Trump fires their asses for being whiny little bitches... Making 65k a year to play junior detectives. Sad!

Hell yes , fire them all . Get a real job .

spudea
06-10-2018, 07:30 PM
Guy been at this for 30 years, tens of thousands of documents mysteriously "lost" under the Obama administration... OOPS!!!

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/06/10/crisis_at_the_national_archives_137241.html


And yet the accumulation of recent congressional testimony has made it clear that the Obama administration itself engaged in the wholesale destruction and “loss” of tens of thousands of government records covered under the act as well as the intentional evasion of the government records recording system by engaging in private email exchanges. So far, former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Lynch and several EPA officials have been named as offenders. The IRS suffered record “losses” as well. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy called it “an unauthorized private communications system for official business for the patent purpose of defeating federal record-keeping and disclosure laws.”

specsaregood
06-10-2018, 08:07 PM
“We had to endure this under the Trump administration,” Young said. “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.”

I got news for you douchebag, the guy emptying the trashcans is doing more important work than you have ever or will ever do in your current position. In fact, your job shouldn't exist.

euphemia
06-10-2018, 09:08 PM
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/content.php?11148-More-Evidence-of-Political-Coverup-in-Dem-IT-Security-Scandal

RonZeplin
06-10-2018, 09:56 PM
Obama stuffed his papers into his underwear, then breaking news CNN boner story.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YJcIuCF5RdI/maxresdefault.jpg

Danke
06-10-2018, 10:02 PM
Zippy's point was more that Trump shouldn't be shredding these papers, not that these archivers were making too much.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that maybe they should get real goddamn jobs.

Here's to hoping Donald Trump fires their asses for being whiny little bitches... Making 65k a year to play junior detectives. Sad!


Guy been at this for 30 years, tens of thousands of documents mysteriously "lost" under the Obama administration... OOPS!!!

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/06/10/crisis_at_the_national_archives_137241.html

Zippy will get a lot of over time now posting here.

Firestarter
06-11-2018, 08:22 AM
Zippy will get a lot of over time now posting here. Maybe I can give a little help?



Given that this is from POLITICO, there is a very significant chance that it is pure fiction. I guess that CNN isn’t as “reliable” as Politicio, but they agree with this story: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/10/politics/white-house-presidential-records-act/index.html

There are other news outlets that have taken over this story, including The Hill, NY Post and Huffington Post: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/391576-white-house-staffers-tasked-with-taping-together-papers-after-trump
https://nypost.com/2018/06/10/trump-routinely-rips-up-papers-that-need-to-be-preserved/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-rips-documents_us_5b1e030de4b09d7a3d744da2?guccounter=1

I believe that Solomon Lartey is telling the truth...

Anti Federalist
06-11-2018, 09:08 AM
Shit...I'd have a burn barrel on the front lawn.

timosman
06-11-2018, 09:11 AM
Maybe I can give a little help?


Please don't. An unhinged arsonist working overtime is the last thing this forum needs. :cool:

Firestarter
06-11-2018, 11:08 AM
Please don't. An unhinged arsonist working overtime is the last thing this forum needs. :cool: I don't think that Zippyjuan will really try to help in getting the spark for the revolution...
Maybe I'm one of the few forum members to think that there is a shortage of criticism against President Donald?!?

Can I make it up with the promise to go against Zippyjuan when he defends big pharma?