The FBI searched Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence.
Video / AP / CNBC
Donald Trump's enthusiasm for destroying official documents over the years has infamously included claims he tore up notes and records before flushing them down the White House toilets.
But until now evidence to support the claim that the former US president clogged up the White House plumbing has been in short supply.
The toilet claim first surfaced early this year, just days after the National Archives first revealed Trump had been forced to return 15 boxes of documents that were taken by him or his staff from the White House to his own property.
Those records reportedly included letters from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un — correspondence Trump had referred to as "love letters" — and other classified material, prompting the National Archives to consult with the Justice Department.
"I was really tough and so was he, and we went back and forth," Trump told a rally in 2018 of his relationship with the North Korean dictator.
"And then we fell in love, Okay? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they're great letters. We fell in love.
"The ones I did best with were the tyrants. For whatever reason, I got along great with them."
The material seized in February even included a map Trump drew with his preferred black Sharpie texta in 2014, to back up his claims on Twitter about the path of Hurricane Dorian that contradicted weather forecasts.
Trump infamously added the black section onto this map to reflect his claims about the path of Hurricane Dorian. Photo / Getty Images
Shortly after it was revealed that Trump had kept the "love letters" and the hurricane map, the toilet flushing report emerged.
The former US president denied the claim he was the mystery flusher.
In fact, he even described New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who broke the story, as "a maggot".
Her claim, included in her upcoming book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, was "categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book", he said.
But this week, as reports emerged of an FBI raid believed to be targeting new documents Trump may have kept and not handed over, the toilet photographs emerged.
And there, written in the former US president's distinctive scribble – and yes, with a black Sharpie pen – were notes ripped to shreds and flushed down the loo.
NEW IN AXIOS: Trump denied flushing documents as president, as I learned during reporting last year for CONFIDENCE MAN. A Trump White House source recently provided PHOTOS of paper with Trump’s handwriting in two different toilets via @mikeallenhttps://t.co/wv6rrupO1n
Haberman — who said she obtained the photos recently — said one photo was of a toilet in the White House and the other was from an overseas trip.
Speaking to CNN, she described her reporting as "gross and important".
"The point is about the destruction of records which are supposed to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act, which is a Watergate-era creation," she said.
"It's important because who knows what this paper was? Only he would know and presumably whoever was dealing with him, but the important point is about the records."
Haberman said the allegation Trump was discarding documents in this way was not widely known within the West Wing, but some aides were aware of the habit, which the then-president engaged in repeatedly.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich later told Axios: "You have to be pretty desperate to sell books if pictures of paper in a toilet bowl is part of your promotional plan.
"We know ... there are enough people willing to fabricate stories like this in order to impress the media class — a media class who is willing to run with anything, as long as it is anti-Trump."
New images revealed this morning of toilets... clogged with Trump White House documents. @maggieNYT joins us to discuss her reporting: pic.twitter.com/WyLuRcpr3g
"Destroying [White House documents] could be a crime under several statutes that make it a crime to destroy government property if that was the intent of the defendant," Stephen Gillers, a constitutional law professor at New York University, told the Washington Post.
"A president does not own the records generated by his own administration. The definition of presidential records is broad. Trump's own notes to himself could qualify, and destroying them could be the criminal destruction of government property."
Previously, White House officials have claimed staffers frequently put documents into "burn bags" to be destroyed, rather than preserving them.
Courtney Chartier, president of the Society of American Archivists, said: "There is no ignorance of these laws. There are White House manuals about the maintenance of these records."
However, it was what the former US president decided to keep rather than destroy when he left the White House that is understood to be the subject of the FBI raid at his property.
Overnight, his lawyers confirmed that a dozen new boxes of materials were taken from Mar-a-Lago after the raid.
Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Photo / Getty Images
In February, when the National Archives and Record Administration confirmed it had recovered the original 15 boxes of records from his West Palm Beach home, including some considered to involve "classified national security information", it also confirmed "ongoing communications" with Trump's team.
The raid is believed to have been aimed at discovering whether or not Trump handed over everything he was supposed to earlier this year.
The 12 boxes suggest that the FBI believe he did not.
