Maggie Haberman was one of the NY Times journalists who got a lot of “scoops” during the Trump administration. She was one of Donald Trump’s favorite journalists because she was nice to him and didn’t question him too hard, and the people around Trump trusted her to a certain extent. Now Haberman has written a book about her years covering the Trump White House, and it’s called Confidence Man. In the book, Haberman confirms a lot of reporting this week about Trump’s refusal to adhere to the Presidential Records Act – Trump failed to preserve many of his documents while in office, he outright stole documents and moved them to Mar-a-Lago, and as Haberman reports, he literally tried to flush documents down the toilet.
While President Trump was in office, staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet — and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper, Maggie Haberman scoops in her forthcoming book, “Confidence Man.”
The revelation by Haberman, whose coverage as a New York Times White House correspondent was followed obsessively by Trump, adds a vivid new dimension to his lapses in preserving government documents. Axios was provided an exclusive first look at some of her reporting.
Haberman reports Trump has told people that since leaving office, he has remained in contact with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — whose “love letters,” as Trump once called them, were among documents the National Archives retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.
The news of White House toilet-flushing comes as the National Archives has reportedly asked the Biden Justice Department to examine Trump’s handling of White House records, amid the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. While in office, the former president blithely flouted the Presidential Records Act, which required him to preserve written communications concerning his official duties. Trump routinely tore up documents and after leaving office brought substantial written materials back to Mar-a-Lago.
This isn’t just innocently faulty record-keeping, like some documents got damaged somewhere or a few pages of that briefing book were lost. This is willful criminal activity and federal authorities actually want a thorough investigation and possible criminal charges into Trump’s lost, stolen and destroyed records. The National Archives had to send people down to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve FIFTEEN BOXES full of documents which belong to the Archives, not Trump. At least we’ve also solved the mystery of why Trump had all of the toilets replaced in the White House: he needed better toilets to flush his records. But His Records!
Mmmhmm. https://t.co/w3BTQBpS7X
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 9, 2022
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The willfull destruction of government information bars him from ever holding office again. Law.
I’m wondering how the Proud Boy/QAnon crowd will try to tie this into their narrative. Can you imagine the mental gymnastics they will try to pull to turn all of this into the rational actions of a stable genius? I can’t with Trump supporters. I couldn’t before, I for sure can’t now. I can’t even fathom wanting to support him in the next election, and in my part of the country, many people do… like wtf…
Same old, trusted lies
“the news media is not your friend”
“it’s a witch hunt”
“they don’t want to reinstate his rightful re-election”
The list will be endless. I was reading that documents were torn up and stored in Coke, I think it was Coke and that dissolves the crap on your car battery.
This is the thing that might actually send him to prison.
True. Title 18 Section 2071 of US code says fine, prison or both for destruction of federal documents.
What does it say about being an accessory to these crimes? It’s hard to believe Patrick Bateman, Princess Nagini, and Tweedledum weren’t aware of 15 boxes of documents being moved around… plus they had all access..
He has slithered by so far, god I pray something catches up with this vile criminal.
@ Jennifer Romans: Yes, he has. I think his ass needs to move to Russia or China if he thinks the way government works in America is wrong. He can duke it out with Putin and Jong-Un who will be the Supreme Idiot.
Nothing embodies him more than a toilet. This fits perfectly.
Awesome fitting legacy symbol.
Nixon and flashlights. Clinton and BJs. Trump and toilets.
18k gold plated toilets, I might add
He is the worst!!! Such a poop stain on our history. He never should have been Able to be president and he belongs behind bars!!!!!
And yet he continues to prosper unbothered by silly things likes rules and laws. He is the distillation of the axiom ‘life is unfair’.
BUT HER EMAILS!
FFS
I will always enjoy Hillary’s salty responses!!! Lol!!
Maggie Haberman was actually pretty rough on Trump. She’s the one who wrote about him wandering around the White House in the middle of the night in his bathrobe, and revealed a lot about what a sh*tshow that administration was. But he craves his name in the nyt so he couldn’t quit her.
No she wasn’t and still isn’t.
The Trump administration purposely leaked provocative and brow-raising, “WTF” narratives to the press as a form of distraction from the truly incriminating stuff going on behind the scenes. MAGA Maggie ate it up like a starving dog. She’s part of the problem.
Unbelievable . for real. This person on top of being an ass, is surely mentally ill.
No, this is NOT mental illness!! This is a criminal action by a man who has ALWAYS flouted laws, stolen money, raped and assaulted women and has siphoned millions of dollars from small businesses out of paying their fair due because he is a monster of epic proportion’s.
Drumpf does NOT have mental illness. He is a criminal!
While we are not privy to his medical records, we all pretty much concurred he is a text book example of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (and frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out he had frontal lobe dementia due to untreated syphillis).
This is a national security issue. Haberman had a duty to report it when she first heard it. I’m so sick of reporters saving information of extreme national interest for their books. Remember when Trump told Woodward covid was going to be really bad?
You are right!! She was using her position solely to fatten her wallet with a book. She should be charged for failing to contact authorities.
Not really surprised by Maggie Haberman who was always front and center sucking up to Trump with softball questions. Still.
MAGA Maggie is more concerned about an “All About Eve” feud in 2024 between Trump and his newer, younger version, Ron DeSantis, then she is about national security issues. Having integrity doesn’t pay her bills.
He’ll never be held accountable for the billions he made while in office or the hundreds of millions Javanka made on international deals. What about the shady Air Force One deal, where a man in the oil and gas industry went on AFO and an hour later had permissions to drill in protected areas? Will anyone investigate what percentage or backend deal Drumpf got on that? He figured out every loophole, leveraged them all, has made billions, and is getting away with all of it.
Teflon Don will probably slide out of this one too.
Yup. I can’t even begin to count the number of times that people have said this is the one that’s going to stick, this is going to be what brings him down, etc. It hasn’t happened yet. At this point I think he’s going to croak before anyone ever gets him on anything.
His adult children and all his other minions on the other hand…
Nothing will happen.
Here is proof that he actually thought that the job of president of the United States was a job and that he was CEO of a private company and he could run it as such and do whatever he wanted. And that those documents belonged to him and not the federal government.
He’s such a hot mess.
Tin foil theory: this is why McConnell and McCarthy have come out saying Jsn. 6th was an Insurrection. I’d bet they know a smoking gun was found in those boxes collected from Mar-A-Lago.
McConnell said it was a violent insurrection, not that soulless POS McCarthy. He literally ran like he was running a 5K when a reporter asked about it – and the censure of Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. He is garbage, like so many of them still kissing Trumps fat orange ads.
I love that the GOP is fighting and fracturing before our eyes!!!
No McCarthy did. There was an article in the Fail.
I saw Moscow Mitch make the statement on the news. Moscow Mitch did call it an insurrection on Jan. 6th., plain and simple. He also called out the RNC for censuring both Cheney and what’s-his-name, as unfathomable, or something.
@Rapunzel Oh, you are right ! But he still agreed with the GOP’s censure of Cheney and Kinzinger. He is still playing games to kiss up to Trump in the hopes to maintain the Majority House Speaker position. The man is pure garbage and has zero backbone – pretty much like Ted Cruz LOL! I have never seen such a despicable mess of people in the Republican party as the current one. Complete and utter morons.
It does make sense. If they know more bad stuff is about to come out, they’re trying to distance themselves from it. Good luck with that.
Please let this be true 🙏🏻👍
The thing that kills me about “revelations” like this are that we knew it was happening at the time. Like, why couldn’t we do anything about it while he was still in office destroying documents?? Better late than never, but I wonder how things may have been different.
Remember when Mango went on that crazy rant about how it took ten flushes to flush a toilet? Now we know why. 😳
I thought the same thing when I saw this news. That rant about toilets makes perfect sense now! There had better be repercussions coming soon for him. This is a major national security risk.
Remember when Ivanka’s secret service couldn’t use their bathrooms so the guys went over to the Obama’s? And then they got black balled from the Obama’s because they wrecked the bathroom too badly? The toilet is their family symbol!
What if the SS was flushing papers for Trump in the Obama’s bathroom? Imagine!
….but her emails!
I don’t know why this is being treated as a big revelation. During the initial days of his presidency, I recall reading a piece on Politico about his aides frantically trying to preserve documents. Why? Because Trump would tear them up and eat the pieces. No joke
I’m on my phone so I can post the article but it’s out there.
And the messed up part is he will get away with it.
He’s vehemently denying it, so it is 100% true.
Yup, completely illegal and yet, he will skate. He’s not been punished for anything illegal or shady he has done in his entire life, so why would this be any different? I used to hope it would happen, but I think I’ll have to content myself with having a party when he dies instead of when he goes to jail.
The fact that he seems to be getting away with the NUMEROUS crimes he has committed… do you think it’s just a matter of time and the DOJ is making sure they have an airtight case? Or is it that’s there real concern that the magats and his cult will really start something if he is arrested? I go back and forth and it’s really worrying to think that he may skate.
In this day and age, are there no electronic backups of said documents? Seems impossible. Doesn’t change that what he did was wrong, but it would be interesting to know which documents were destroyed to see what he was trying so hard to hide.
He was known to never use email or text or even write things down – if it wasn’t in a sharpie, it probably wasn’t written down. He’s not stupid. He’s conniving and evil. Imagine living every moment of your life in pursuit of personal gain and knowing that you’re destroying everyone in your wake. The energy that must take. You get ONE life, and he spends his making sure he flushes his incriminating notes down the toilet.
Before I even read the post, my response to the headline was, “Of course he did”. I believe all his “filing”, tweeting, and “presidenting” happened in the bathroom.
That’s the only reason he uses a toilet because everyone knows he wears diapers.
As a swede (with an american father) I’m very worried what will happens if the US will stop being an democracy. We really don’t need another Russia or China.
Every picture of him just screams “Dickhead!” to me.
Are you going to update this story now that it’s been completely debunked?