Donald Trump’s well-known habit of ripping up documents did not stop once he entered the White House, where staff reportedly resorted to taping together piles of shredded paper. But the practice was “far more widespread and indiscriminate than previously known” and extended throughout his four years in office, according to The Washington Post.

White House documents – from schedules to sensitive memos – were regularly ripped into quarters and tossed into trash bins or on the floor of Air Force One, or stuffed into “burn bags” to be incinerated at the Pentagon, only for aides to sort through the contents to determine which bits needed to be preserved under federal law, the newspaper reported.

Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must maintain all documents touched by the president to be preserved by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The former president’s reportedly relentless habit of destroying sensitive documents was clearly in violation of the law, according to Courtney Chartier, president of the Society of American Archivists.

She told the newspaper: “There is no ignorance of these laws. There are White House manuals about the maintenance of these records.”