Donald Trump’s War on Toilets May Be Far More Nefarious Than Suspected: ‘I don’t say it’
There are a few things you expect a President to complain about. The heavy workload, belligerent foreign leaders, the travel
Tristan Green
There are a few things you expect a President to complain about. The heavy workload, belligerent foreign leaders, the travel schedule – all pretty typical complaints.
So journalists weren't the only ones thrown for a loop and a little baffled by former President Donald Trump publicly airing his concerns about the White House's sluggish water pressure. Everything from showers to toilets received the former President's ire.
The complaints were the butt of comedians' jokes for months, but new evidence may show that the real reason behind his complaints about sluggish flushes isn't very laughable – it's sinister.
Illegally Flushed Documents?
Speaking before a crowd in 2020, Trump belabored the state of White House dishwashers.
But it wasn't just dishwashers on the former President's radar, bathroom appliances also received some hate.
"I hate to say the three things; it's the shower, it's the sink, and you know the third element in the bathroom. But I don't say it, because every time I say it they only talk about that one. Because it's sort of gross to talk about. So I won't talk about the fact that people have to flush the toilet 15 times."
That wasn't the first (or the last) time Trump complained about having to flush a toilet multiple times, and it was comedy fodder for late night hosts and a head-scratcher for journalists who wondered why the President wanted people to know that he could use more fiber in his diet.
But it may not have just been made-for-toilet objects Trump was trying to flush; reports suggest that he was tearing up documents and flushing them. White House aides report that toilets were frequently plugged with paper, a serious violation of presidential document preservation.
He would often frustrate aides who were tasked with preserving presidential notes and communications, tearing even important papers into tiny shreds that they would then have to piece together.
Obviously, the toilet documents were nearly impossible to do that with.
A new book from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman purports to show actual photographic evidence of those shredded and partially flushed documents, with torn up pieces of paper covered in Trump's scrawl visible at the bottom of the bowl.
One former Trump ally-turned-enemy, Omarosa Manigault Newman, said Trump, "loved" to tear up documents. People reports, "'His habit of tearing these things up … my heart truly goes out to the people responsible for going in the trash bins [and] recovering these things. But there are certainly things that I'm sure cannot be accounted for because Donald Trump became very very aware that a lot of these sensitive documents would at some point be made public,' Newman said on MSNBC.
She also claimed that she once saw Trump 'chewing' a document he had just torn up after meeting with his former attorney Michael Cohen in the Oval Office."
Trump has furiously denied these reports and suggested that his frustration with the toilets is of a more personal nature.
Haberman’s Book is Hotly Anticipated
Newly revealed photographs show two occasions on which former President Donald Trump apparently flushed documents down the toilet https://t.co/saOXvscW0e
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 8, 2022
Even if you're on Team Trump, Haberman's forthcoming book titled, "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America," is being eagerly anticipated.
Like the House's January 6 hearings, even those closest to Trump are waiting to see what the book reveals, because they simply may have been kept out of a loop they may find themselves legally culpable for.
It is reported that many in the West Wing were not aware of Trump's document-destroying ways, but that his closest aides were aware and scrambled to mitigate the damage he was doing.
If proven true, Trump violated the Presidential Records Act which requires the preservation of all job-related communications and documents as property of the United States government and people.