Report: Trump’s Habit of Clogging Toilets With Government Documents Even Grosser Than Previously Thought

Is Donald Trump going to be criminally charged over his handling of classified documents after leaving office? As with so many outstanding investigations into the ex-president, we do not know at this time. One thing he should definitely be indicted over and sentenced to federal prison for? Reportedly operating in such a manner that required White House aides to follow him around to various bathrooms, go in after he was done, fish out torn-up documents he’d tried to stuff down the toilets, and put the pieces—which, again, had been in a toilet—back together.

Last year, we learned from New York Times scribe Maggie Haberman that “staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet—and believed the president had flushed pieces of paper.” But we did not know at the time what those who made the discoveries were expected to do with the evidence. Previous reporting from The Washington Post had revealed that Trump’s habit of tearing up documents was so frequent as to warrant a protocol in which “aides from either the Office of the Staff Secretary or the Oval Office Operations team” would follow him around collecting “piles of torn paper he left in his wake,” and then painstakingly “jigsaw…the documents back together, using clear tape.” At the time, it seemed that this protocol was intended for paper left on dry surfaces. In other words, no one really expected that after the indignity of finding a toilet clogged by one’s boss, aides would then have to put their hands in said toilet, take out the material causing the blockage, and then further deal with it from there. (Because that would be insane and, again, something an employer should be arrested for. And yet, according to a new report from the Times, that’s exactly what happened.)

In the midst of a long piece on the state of special counsel Jack Smith’s pair of investigations into the ex-president, the paper of record writes:

Mr. Trump was known to rip up pieces of paper, and to bring documents up to the White House residence. Notes taken by aides in 2018 show that Mr. Trump’s advisers appeared to be contending with tracking documents he had brought with him to his club in Bedminster, NJ, where he stayed over weekends during the warmer months of the year.

In some cases, Mr. Trump tore up documents and threw them in toilets in the White House. Aides would periodically retrieve what was not flushed down and let it dry, then tape it back together and pass the documents on to the staff secretary, whose office managed presidential paper flow, according to two people familiar with what took place.

The emphasis is ours because, what the actual fuck. To be clear, we’re not disgusted by the aides’ decision to stick their hands in these bowls and “retrieve what was not flushed down,” but with Trump for putting them in that position. (It’s also worth noting that Trump’s reported shredding habit was in violation of the Presidential Records Act, and the act of literally putting the pieces back together for him was obviously an attempt to comply with the law.)

Elsewhere in the latest re: Smith—who was appointed last year to oversee the Justice Department’s criminal probes into Trump’s classified-documents handling and attempt to overturn the election—the Times reports that the special counsel “is moving aggressively.” Among other things, Smith’s team has reportedly issued a subpoena to Mike Pence, who could obviously give a first-hand account of Trump’s attempt to stay in power; interviewed one of Trump’s lawyers before a grand jury that is investigating Trump’s decision not to return classified documents to the government, despite being asked to on multiple occasions; and “has been asking witnesses about research the Trump campaign commissioned by an outside vendor shortly after the election that was intended to come up with evidence of election fraud.” In addition, the Times reports that Smith “appears to be pursuing an offshoot of the January 6 case, examining Save America, a pro-Trump political action committee, through which Mr. Trump raised millions of dollars with his false claims of election fraud.”

In other Trump legal news, a Fulton County judge said Monday that he will unseal three sections of a report produced by the grand jury investigating Trump’s attempt to overturn in the 2020 election in Georgia, including the introduction and conclusion, as well as a section regarding the grand jury’s concerns that “some witnesses may have lied under oath during their testimony.” (If it wasn’t clear, lying under oath is a crime.) Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, has said charging decisions are “imminent.”