Secret of Trump's clogged White House Toilet revealed in Maggie Haberman bombshell book
Journalist Maggie Haberman's forthcoming book, 'Confidence Man,' has alleged that White House staffers during the Donald Trump presidency periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet and believed he had flushed the torn pieces himself. However, Trump has brushed off the claims as "another fake story."
Haberman extensively covered Trump as a New York Times White House correspondent. The allegation comes amid scrutiny over his administration's handling of government documents. Haberman claims in her book that Trump has told people he has remained in touch with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, whose so-called "love letters" to the former POTUS were among documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago by the National Archives.
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Following Haberman's claims, Trump vehemently denied flushing documents down a toilet in the White House. "Also, another fake story, that I flushed papers and documents down a White House toilet, is categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book," he wrote in a statement Thursday morning, February 10.
The news of a clogged White House toilet comes as the National Archives asked the Justice Department to examine Trump's handling of White House records as part of the congressional investigation into the January 6 Capitol riots. A source told CNN that the Archives was seeking a review of whether the 45th President had violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires all records created by presidents to be handed over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations. The act also explains possible violations, including the handling of classified information.
The request came after reports that the Archives had to recover 15 boxes of records that were with Trump in Mar-a-Lago and that some of the documents given to them were torn up and had to be pieced together. According to a CNN source, Archives general counsel Gary Stern contacted Trump's team about a number of boxes of records that appeared to have been transported to the beachfront estate during his relocation to South Florida. The source said these included boxes that had been in the White House residence and had mistakenly been packed with other personal belongings of the first family.
Last month, the National Archives said in a statement that some Trump White House documents that had been handed over to the House select committee investigating January 6 had to be taped back together by agency staff because they had been ripped up. Responding to CNN, the agency said that "some of the Trump presidential records received by the National Archives and Records Administration included paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump." Trump, however, has maintained that the transfer of boxes to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) was done "openly and willingly."
Haberman's "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America" will be published on October 4 by Penguin Press. The book is said to trace Trump's early life in New York and "his decades of interactions with prosecutors," followed by his four years in the White House, and finally giving a glimpse of his post-presidential life in Palm Beach, Axios reported.