Paper disposal in the White House
Trump is said to have clogged the toilet with files
02/10/2022, 8:58 p.m
Trump tore up unwanted documents during his tenure as US President. No one knows how many hours White House staff spent gluing them back together. Allegedly, writing should even have landed in the locus, claims an author.
The reports about former US President Donald Trump’s handling of documents in the White House are becoming increasingly bizarre. According to a new book, the Republican repeatedly clogged a toilet in the living area of the White House with crumpled paper during his tenure. Accordingly, employees regularly discovered balls of printed paper in the toilet – and assumed that the president had flushed the paper down.
The information comes from the book “Confidence Man” by the “New York Times” journalist Maggie Haberman, which is due to be published in October and which the news website “Axios” now reported. Haberman is considered one of the best connoisseurs of Trump and his environment. During Trump’s tenure from 2017 to 2021, she received several sensational exclusive stories about the Republican.
Trump was notorious for tearing up official documents as president, despite the fact that by law they are required to be retained. White House staff had to tape the files back together. The US National Archives, which is responsible for storing records from previous presidents, said last week that it received documents that were torn and taped back together, but also unrepaired, following Trump’s departure from the White House in January 2021.
Claim “categorically untrue” according to Trump
Then this week, the revelation that Trump had taken a large amount of documents from the White House to his luxury Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida caused a sensation. Among the documents were letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The National Archives had to pick up 15 boxes full of documents in Mar-a-Lago – and, according to a media report, has asked the Ministry of Justice to deal with the case.
Trump himself commented on Thursday in a statement about the documents – and also about the report about the clogged toilet. “That I flushed papers and documents down a White House toilet is categorically untrue.” It was the invention of a reporter who wanted to advertise her “largely invented book”.
The 75-year-old right-wing populist also stated that there had been no “conflict” with the National Archives, and that the contact had been “friendly”. “It has been a great honor to work with the National Archives to help preserve the Trump legacy.” Some of the documents would one day be displayed in a presidential library named after him “so that the public could see the incredible achievements of my administration”.
Trump has not yet admitted his election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020. The ex-president, who is still very popular with the base, has repeatedly brought up a possible re-election in 2024.