While President Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet — and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper, Maggie Haberman scoops in her forthcoming book, "Confidence Man."
Why it matters: The revelation by Haberman, whose coverage as a New York Times White House correspondent was followed obsessively by Trump, adds a vivid new dimension to his lapses in preserving government documents. Axios was provided an exclusive first look at some of her reporting.
Haberman reports Trump has told people that since leaving office, he has remained in contact with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — whose "love letters," as Trump once called them, were among documents the National Archives retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.
Zoom out: The news of White House toilet-flushing comes as the National Archives has reportedly asked the Biden Justice Department to examine Trump's handling of White House records, amid the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
The Washington Post reports that National Archives officials "suspected Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents." The National Archives later retrieved 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago, The Post reported.
Archives officials found possible classified material in the returned boxes, The New York Times learned.
While in office, the former president blithely flouted the Presidential Records Act, which required him to preserve written communications concerning his official duties.
Trump routinely tore up documents and after leaving office brought substantial written materials back to Mar-a-Lago.
A Trump spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment about the plumbing matter.
Felony... From another article "It’s not because of the Presidential Records Act, which Kirschner called “largely toothless,” but rather a closely related law that does have some fangs: 18 U.S. Code § 2071, which prohibits concealing, removing or mutilating official records."
AKRON, OHIO (The Borowitz Report)—In a remarkable discovery, a customer who purchased a MyPillow duvet found it stuffed with classified documents from the desk of Donald J. Trump.
Carol Foyler, who lives in Akron, Ohio, said that, after she accidentally tore open the duvet, a trove of shredded documents came spilling out.
After she began taping together the documents, she found several relating to national defense, including an order from Trump to send a birthday cake to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un.
Foyler said that, once she finishes reconstituting the documents, she will send them to the National Archives in Washington for safekeeping.
“Obviously, it’s not ideal to find classified documents inside a random duvet, but so far I haven’t seen the nuclear codes,” she said.
-------------------------------- When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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