Donald Trump ripped up White House records linked to Capital siege

Staff at the National Archives have to tape back together several pages torn up by the president before he left office.

Trump supporters storm the US Capitol on January 6 last year. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump had personally ripped up White House records that were turned over to the committee investigating the January 6 riot last year, forcing staff at the National Archives to tape them back together.

The investigation of the insurrection continues to tighten around the former president.

A cache of 700 pages of White House records and communi­cations was turned over to the congressional committee two weeks ago, after a lengthy legal battle in which Mr Trump fought to keep them secret.

The National Archives has revealed that it received several pages torn up by the president himself before he left office.

“Some of the Trump presidential records received by the Nat­ional Archives … included paper records that had been torn up by former president Trump,” the ­archives said, in response to questions from CNN.

The revelation comes amid further bad news for Mr Trump as the investigation into the January 6 riot, when his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a bid to halt confirmation of Joe Biden’s election victory, closes in on his inner circle.

Marc Short, who was chief of staff to former vice-president Mike Pence, testified at length to the committee last week, it has emerged. Mr Trump himself is also reported to have drafted two versions of an executive order to seize voting machines during the 2020 election, as new details continue to pour out regarding the multi-pronged strategy to overturn his defeat to Mr Biden.

Mr Trump had blocked the ­release of White House records relating to January 6 for weeks, claiming executive privilege and taking his lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court, where his ­appeal was finally thrown out in December.

The former president has been reported to routinely tear up documents that cross his desk and it is not clear that the White House records were ripped up to conceal evidence from any potential ­future investigation after he left office. White House staff were reportedly assigned to retrieve and reassemble papers torn up by the president.

The National Archives cited, however, “a number of torn-up records that had not been reconstructed by the White House. The Presidential Records Act requires that all records created by presidents be turned over to the Nat­ional Archives at the end of their administrations.”

The news that Mr Short had given evidence to the January 6 committee represents an even greater blow to the former president. The vice-president’s chief of staff is the most senior official around Mr Pence to have given evidence to the committee so far.

Investigators believe Mr Pence’s office is critical because the vice-president came under intense pressure from Mr Trump to use his role in overseeing the official count of electoral college votes in congress on January 6 to intervene and halt certification of Mr Biden’s victory.

Mr Trump’s national security adviser General Keith Kellogg witnessed the president telephone Mr Pence from the Oval Office on the morning of January 6 and has testified that the president said: “Mike, it’s not right … I’m counting on you to do this. If you don’t do it, I picked the wrong man four years ago. You’re going to wimp out.”

Mr Short was intimately involved with Mr Pence’s debate over whether to bow to Mr Trump’s demand. When he refused, rioters broke into the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”

Mr Trump lambasted Mr Pence again at the weekend, ­denouncing his vice-president for failing to step in and halt the vote count.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the election!” he said.

The Times