It’s the scoop they were all after. Finally, at last, the much-lambasted Washington press pack has obtained the media equivalent of the holy grail: images of Donald J Trump’s toilet. For months, such shenanigans have exercised the finest minds in American political journalism. Now, Maggie Haberman, the darling of the DC class, has pipped them all with pictures for her forthcoming hatchet-job on Trump, according to a breathless report by the admiring hacks over at Axios.
Why the focus on Trump’s toilet you ask? Well, Haberman reports that during Trump’s tenure, White House residence staff periodically found wads of paper clogging a toilet — and believed the former president, a notorious destroyer of Oval Office documents, was the flusher. J’accuse! Destroying records that should be preserved is potentially illegal, hence why Axios and others appear to regard several images obtained by Haberman of toilet bowls containing hand-written paper as akin to a smoking gun.
The scrawl on the paper does appear to be that of Trump, in the tell-tale Sharpie which he favoured. Axios gasps that while ‘most of the words are illegible’, the scrawls do ‘include the name of Republican. Elise Stefanik of upstate New York, a Trump defender who’s a member of House Republican leadership.’ What a job eh, scrutinising the findings of the presidential lavatory.
Haberman’s sources report that such, er, document dumps happened ‘multiple times’ at the White House, and on at least two foreign trips. She claims:
That Mr Trump was discarding documents this way was not widely known within the West Wing, but some aides were aware of the habit, which he engaged in repeatedly. It was an extension of Trump’s term-long habit of ripping up documents that were supposed to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act.
For their part, the Trump camp dismissed the story, claiming that ‘you have to be pretty desperate to sell books if pictures of paper in a toilet bowl is part of your promotional plan.’ Such claims are clearly part of Haberman’s plans to ensure sales leave her feeling flushed…
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