Newly released photos show documents that Donald Trump purportedly attempted to flush down the toilet, offering some credence to previous reports that the former president attempted to destroy Oval Office records during his term.
NEW IN AXIOS: Trump denied flushing documents as president, as I learned during reporting last year for CONFIDENCE MAN. A Trump White House source recently provided PHOTOS of paper with Trump’s handwriting in two different toilets via @mikeallen https://t.co/wv6rrupO1n
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 8, 2022
Staff members occasionally found wads of paper clogging toilets in the White House and believed Trump, who allegedly had a record of destroying other documents, was the one flushing them, according to a book from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. Haberman previously reported that Trump destroyed the records, although the former president denied the story, calling it “categorically untrue” and “simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book.”
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In the two photos that will be published in Haberman’s book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America and were obtained by Axios, former White House staffers documented two instances in which the former president attempted to flush wads of paper down the toilet. One photo was taken from inside the White House, while the other was from an overseas trip, sources told Haberman.
The handwriting is assumed to be Trump’s as it matches other handwritten notes from the former president and is scrawled out in Sharpie ink, which he often used to write notes. It’s not clear what was written on the papers, although one includes the name of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY).
Representatives for Trump maintain he never attempted to flush documents.
“You have to be pretty desperate to sell books if pictures of paper in a toilet bowl is part of your promotional plan,” said Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for the former president. “We know … there’s enough people willing to fabricate stories like this in order to impress the media class — a media class who is willing to run with anything, as long as it anti-Trump.”
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The destruction of Oval Office records could land the former president in legal trouble because those documents are required to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act. Although he has denied ever flushing the records, the photos could offer new ammunition for Trump critics.
Prosecutors opened an investigation into how Trump handled classified documents after the National Archives and Records Administration recovered 15 boxes of Oval Office records at his Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this year. Investigators subpoenaed the NARA and issued requests for several Trump administration officials in order to understand how and why the documents were removed from the White House.
