Washington (CNN)– A series of newly released photos show two occasions when former President Donald Trump apparently flushed documents down the toilet.
Maggie Haberman, a reporter for the newspaper The New York Times and CNN contributor, will publish the new images in her upcoming book, “Confidence Man,” and they were previously published by Axios.
CNN has previously reported that Trump flouted presidential record-keeping laws and often tore up documents, drafts and memos after reading them.
The former president periodically flushed paper down the toilet in the White House residence, which was later discovered when technicians were called in to fix clogged toilets.
Trump has denied the allegations, and in a statement given to Axios on Monday, a spokesman said reports of the practice were fabricated.
In the images released Monday, it’s unclear what the documents refer to, or who wrote them, but they appear to be written in Trump’s handwriting in black marker. Haberman said one image is from a White House bathroom and the other is from a trip abroad that was provided to him by a Trump White House source.
This image shows the notes that former President Donald Trump apparently tore up and tried to flush down the toilet.
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“Who knows what this role was? Only he would know and presumably whoever was handling it, but the important point is about the records,” Haberman told CNN’s John Berman and Brianna Keilar on “New Day” on Monday. in the morning.
Trump had a pattern of ignoring normal record preservation procedures. Trump once asked if anyone wanted to put up for auction on eBay a copy of a speech he had just delivered, during a mid-flight visit to the Air Force One press box.
At other times, Trump had advisers bring boxes of unread memos, articles and draft tweets aboard Air Force One for him to review and then shred.
A former high-level Trump administration official said a deputy from the Office of the Secretary of Staff used to come in to take things out of the trash and remove them from Trump’s desk after he left a room.
One former White House official recalled that while document preservation was a key responsibility of the staff secretary, the rest of Trump’s top officials lacked a sense of their obligation to keep records of papers moving through the country. West Wing of the White House.
Trump’s chaotic record-keeping was the subject of a lengthy fight earlier this year between him and the National Archives, and the Justice Department has been looking into the matter.
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