Brian Snyder/Portal
Donald Trump, here on August 6, 2022, is accused of keeping confidential documents from his presidency.
UNITED STATES – Donald Trump’s legal troubles continue. This Tuesday, August 9, the FBI searched the former President’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. According to American media, the federal police were looking for about fifteen boxes of confidential documents that he brought home after losing the 2020 presidential election. A completely illegal gesture.
His handling of documents has been criticized since a White House aide said in 2018 she saw Donald Trump eat official documents. Suspicions grew last February. The National Archives accused the former president of stealing, defacing and destroying official and sometimes top-secret documents during his years in the White House. In particular, it was about letters to the North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un.
At the same time, excerpts from Maggie Haberman’s book, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, due out in October, revealed that White House officials sometimes found the toilets at the President’s residence clogged. . And with good reason: Donald Trump would have had the annoying habit of throwing important papers down the drain.
Papers on the floor of the toilet
However, the 1978 law requires all American presidents to submit all of their emails, letters, and other working documents to the National Archives. The destruction of documents is prohibited. Faced with these revelations, Donald Trump had come up with his favorite phrase (“fake news”) and accused the journalist of fabricating this story to sell copies.
But the story doesn’t end here. Just hours before the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid on Tuesday, Maggie Haberman shared photos sent to Axios Media by a source. These show notes on the floor of the toilet. “A Trump White House source recently provided PHOTOS of paper with Trump’s handwriting in two different restrooms,” the reporter wrote on Twitter.
NEW IN AXIOS: Trump refused to flush documents as president, I learned during last year’s coverage for CONFIDENCE… https://t.co/NDMLXDrTI5
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT)
The left photo was taken in the White House, the right one is from a trip abroad, the reporter describes. The handwriting on the papers is said to match Donald Trump’s, and the pen used appears to be his favorite pen, the Sharpie marker. However, the inscriptions are illegible, only the name of the Republican Elise Stefanik, who is close to the ex-president, can be deciphered.
The increasingly difficult race for the 2024 presidential election
Donald Trump again rejected these attacks. “You absolutely have to want to sell books if photos of toilet paper are part of your advertising strategy,” spokesman Taylor Budowich told Axios.
However, the allegations do not end there. Former Trump White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham also claimed on CNN that the real estate tycoon “didn’t handle classified documents properly.” She would have even witnessed his behavior. “I sat on the plane with him and watched him go through his documents. He threw some, ripped some and some ended up in his pocket,” she elaborated.
“The former President of the United States did not handle classified documents properly. I watched him do it… I wa… https://t.co/IzlEUEzBbP
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins)
These revelations come as a fresh blow to Donald Trump, already embroiled in the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, especially as he appears to be positioning himself for the 2024 White House race. He always has his candidacy not officially announced yet.
Also see in the Huffpost: A Saudi golf tournament at Donald Trump’s home sparks controversy
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