By Shania Shelton | CNN
Newly revealed pictures reveal two events on which former President Donald Trump apparently flushed paperwork down the bathroom.
Maggie Haberman, a New York Instances reporter and CNN contributor, is publishing the new photographs in her forthcoming e book, “Confidence Man,” and the pictures had been earlier posted by Axios. CNN has beforehand reported how Trump flouted presidential record-keeping legal guidelines and would typically tear up paperwork, drafts and memos after studying them.
NEW IN AXIOS: Trump denied flushing paperwork as president, as I discovered throughout reporting final 12 months for CONFIDENCE MAN. A Trump White Home supply not too long ago supplied PHOTOS of paper with Trump’s handwriting in two completely different bogs through @mikeallenhttps://t.co/wv6rrupO1n
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 8, 2022
He periodically flushed papers down the bathroom within the White Home residence — solely to be found afterward when repairmen had been summoned to repair the clogged bogs. Trump has denied the allegations, and in an announcement given to Axios on Monday, a spokesman claimed that reporting concerning the apply was fabricated.
Within the photographs revealed on Monday, it’s unclear what the paperwork are in reference to — and who authored them — however they seem like written in Trump’s handwriting in black marker. Haberman mentioned one picture is from a White Home bathroom and the opposite one is from an abroad journey that was supplied to her by a Trump White Home supply.
“Who is aware of what this paper was? Solely he would know and presumably whoever was coping with it, however the vital level is concerning the information,” Haberman informed CNN’s John Berman and Brianna Keilar on “New Day” Monday morning.
Trump had a sample of disregarding regular document preservation procedures. In a single event, Trump requested if anybody wished to place a replica of a speech he simply delivered up for public sale on eBay, throughout a mid-flight go to to the press cabin Air Drive One.
In different situations, Trump would job aides with carrying bins of unread memos, articles and tweet drafts aboard the presidential plane for him to evaluation after which tear to shreds.
A former senior Trump administration official mentioned a deputy from the Workplace of Employees Secretary would normally are available to tug issues out of the trash and take them off Trump’s desk after he left a room.
A former White Home official recalled that whereas doc preservation was a key accountability of the workers secretary, the remainder of Trump’s senior staffers lacked the sense of their obligation to take care of information of papers that moved by way of the West Wing.
Trump’s haphazard record-keeping was the topic of a drawn-out struggle earlier this 12 months between him and the Nationwide Archives, and the Justice Division has been investigating the matter.