Yahoo! News
Trump denies report he flushed printed paper down White House toilet
Dylan Stableford, Senior Writer – February 10, 2022
Former President Donald Trump issued a lengthy statement Thursday disputing reports that 15 boxes of records that the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved from his Mar-a-Lago resort may have included classified documents — and denying the revelation in an upcoming book that former staffers in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet.
In the statement, Trump said that the boxes “contained letters, records, newspapers, magazines, and various articles” and were turned over “following collaborative and respectful discussions” with the National Archives.
“The papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis,” Trump said. “In fact, it was viewed as routine and ‘no big deal.’ In actuality, I have been told I was under no obligation to give this material based on various legal rulings that have been made over the years.”
Trump did not specify which legal rulings he was referring to.
“Crooked Hillary Clinton, as an example, deleted and acid washed 32,000 emails and never gave that to the government,” Trump continued, repeating an attack line from his 2016 presidential campaign. Clinton repeatedly said that the emails deleted from her private server when she was secretary of state were not work related and did not contain classified material. A subsequent FBI investigation found no evidence that the emails were “intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them.”
The Presidential Records Act requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president’s official duties.
Last week, the National Archives confirmed reports that records turned over from the Trump White House “included paper records that had been torn up” by the former president.
On Monday, a spokesman for the National Archives said that in mid-January it “arranged for the transport” from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes containing presidential records that had been improperly removed from the White House, and that Trump’s representatives have informed the agency that “they are continuing to search for additional Presidential records that belong to the National Archives.”
According to the Washington Post, the boxes contained Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — which Trump had described as “love letters” between him and the elusive dictator.
The Post also reported that the National Archives has asked the Justice Department to examine Trump’s handling of White House records, sparking “discussions among federal law enforcement officials about whether they should investigate the former president for a possible crime.”
Meanwhile, Axios reported Thursday that a forthcoming book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman includes reporting that “staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet” — and believed the president had tried to flush them down it.
Trump said the report was “categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book.”
After the former president’s denial, Jennifer Jacobs, a reporter for Bloomberg News, tweeted that sources told her that White House staff “did find clumped/torn/shredded papers and fished them out from blocked bathroom toilet — and believed it had been the president’s doing.”