Donald Trump has a habit of dramatically ripping up papers he is done with, ranging from the notecards for his speeches to letters sent to him by federal lawmakers. Since this is technically illegal—the Presidential Records Act requires each administration to preserve all documents used by a president by transferring them to the National Archives—it means that there is, or at least was, a team of government workers tasked with taping up his shredded documents after he is done with them.
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.
[...] 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.
(This man was later fired by the Trump administration; feel free to speculate why, because they refused to tell him.)
There is heavy symbolism here: All Trump has to do is not willfully tear up government papers he is given; since he cannot muster the three spare neurons required to remember this most basic of tasks, the aides who would be implicated by his most petty of all crime sprees gave up “early on” and we now have a government-employed Scotch Tape Team undoing each individual act of obsessive-compulsive vandalism afterwards.
If only all the other havok wreaked by the Trump administration could be patched together so quickly. We'll be stitching our nation’s other norms and balances back together for at least twenty years.
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On this date at Daily Kos in 2002—Mixed Messages:
The Bush Administration announced that US intelligence and law enforcement agencies thwarted a "dirty bomb" attack on the US. However, I'm confused. President Bush said:
I can tell you that we have a man detained who is a threat to the country, and that thanks to the vigilance of our intelligence-gathering and law enforcement, he is now off the streets, where he should be.
The defense department's resident hawk, Paul Wolfowitz, said:
He did indicate some knowledge of the Washington, D.C., area but I want to emphasize again it was not an actual plan.
So, not only does Bush not mention anything about a dirty bomb plot, but Wolfowitz actually stresses that there is no plan. So, at best we have someone, who perhaps consorted with known terrorist, that has "some knowledge" of the DC area. If he truly is a threat, then bravo. But given the known facts, does his capture really merit the victorious headlines today? […]
What gives? How can the US arrest someone from planning an attack when there is no actual plan? Just another attempt by the Bush Administration to divert attention from explosive hearings on Capitol Hill?
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