With President Donald Trump tearing up documents he’s done with, a team of staffers find themselves preserving them as required by law by painstakingly taping them with clear Scotch tape. The Presidential Records Act requires all memos, letters, e-mails and papers going through the president to be preserved and sent to the National Archives. (Politico, June 10, 2018, by Annie Karni)
The records act was passed in 1978 in response to President Richard Nixon’s refusal to hand over taped conversations to Congressional committees during the Watergate investigations. Aside from the act, the tradition of preserving presidential records goes back to George Washington who insisted everything be saved to inform the public and as part of the historical record. (Time, June 11, 2018, by Alana Abramson)