Trump denies flushing records down the toilet, says he was told he was under ‘no obligation’ to turn over documents, despite the law requiring it

• Trump denies Maggie Haberman’s report that he would clog toilets by trying to flush documents down them.
• Trump also says he was “told I was under no obligation” to promptly turn over his records, which isn’t how the law works.
• There are now at least four reported ways Trump tried to destroy documents in the White House.

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday denied reports that he flushed documents down a White House toilet and said he was told he was under “no obligation” to turn over his administration’s records, a claim that flies in the face of presidential records law.

“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,” Trump said in a statement released by his Save America PAC after Axios reported on excerpts of New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s upcoming book, “Confidence Man.”

Bloomberg White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs said Haberman’s reporting about the documents in toilets is “100% accurate” and that sources at the time confirm that staff found torn up pieces of papers in toilets and thought that Trump was behind it.

Trump has now faced days of questions and reports over his apparent flouting of the Presidential Records Act, which requires every White House to preserve memos, documents, and other memorabilia that is considered the property of the American people.

“In actuality, I have been told I was under no obligation to give this material based on various legal rulings that have been made over the years,” Trump claimed in his statement.

The National Archives, which collects, sorts through, and later releases presidential records, has asked the Justice Department to investigate if Trump broke the law when he took documents to Mar-a-Lago, The Washington Post reported. In another sign of the seriousness of the situation, The Times reports that officials found possible classified information in the documents Trump belatedly handed over.

There are now at least four reported ways Trump sought to destroy documents while in the White House:

• He ripped them up (as Politico first reported in 2018).
• He ate them.
• He dropped them on the floor.
• And he flushed them down the toilet.

Axios, citing Haberman’s book, reports 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.” 

Historians and experts have pointed out that the Presidential Records Act is relatively toothless in punishing those who fail to comply with it. But, as The Daily Beast reported, one federal law dealing with the mutilation or destruction of documents carries the possibility that Trump could be barred from ever holding office again.