Trump would eat torn up documents in the Oval Office, ex-White House aide claims
‘After Michael Cohen left the office and I walked into the Oval, Donald, in my view, was chewing what he had just torn up’
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Ex-Trump White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman has claimed that former President Donald Trump would sometimes chew on torn-up documents.
Mr Trump “loved to tear up those documents,” Ms Manigault Newman told MSNBC after The Washington Post reported that the National Archives recovered 15 boxes of documents that Mr Trump had wrongly had shipped to his Florida residence.
The former adviser said that there are “certainly things that I’m sure cannot be accounted for because Donald Trump became very, very aware that a lot of these sensitive documents would at some point be made public”.
“After [Trump fixer] Michael Cohen left the office and I walked into the Oval, Donald, in my view, was chewing what he had just torn up,” she told MSNBC. “It was very bizarre because he is a germophobe he never puts paper in his mouth.”
After being fired in 2017 – the first year of Mr Trump’s presidency – Ms Manigault Newman has become an outspoken Trump critic.
“His habit of tearing these things up ... my heart truly goes out to the people responsible for going in the trash bins [and] recovering these things,” she told the cable news network.
It was reported over the weekend that Mr Trump wrongly took some presidential documents from the White House as he left for Mar-a-Lago.
“In mid-January 2022, NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) arranged for the transport from the Trump Mar-a-Lago property in Florida to the National Archives of 15 boxes that contained Presidential records, following discussions with President Trump’s representatives in 2021,” the National Archives said in a statement on Monday following a report by The Washington Post.
“The Presidential Records Act mandates that all presidential records must be properly preserved by each administration so that a complete set of presidential records is transferred to the National Archives at the end of the administration,” Archivist David Ferriero said in the statement.
He added that the National Archives “pursues the return of records whenever we learn that records have been improperly removed or have not been appropriately transferred to official accounts”.
Ms Manigault added that staff in the Trump White House were briefed on the Presidential Records Act and that “we had been told that if you’re with the president and he hands you something ... you have to account for that”.
She said among the lost records, “there may be documents that can tell the full story about what happened on the days leading up to January 6th, for instance, that we may never see or may never come to light”.
The Independent has reached out to representatives for Ms Manigault Newman and Mr Trump for comment.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments