"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."

Karni's piece details the work of a small group of White House aides to reassemble documents, memos, printed-out stories and the like that Trump rips to shreds -- literally -- day in and day out.

This is no small thing. After all, as Karni notes, all papers that the President touches have to be preserved. They are history.

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