Mulvaney admits seeing Trump rip up documents but says he never witnessed them being flushed down toilets

11 August 2022

Mick Mulvaney, who previously served as White House chief of staff, recently weighed in with his take on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

On Thursday, August 11, Mulvaney appeared on CNN's “New Day” with host Brianna Keilar where he was asked about circumstances surrounding the investigation involving Trump's possible mishandling of classified documents.

Mulvaney —who has openly criticized the former president— admitted that he had witnessed Trump rip up documents but never saw any "intentional destruction of documents."

“I never saw the intentional destruction of documents for the purpose of keeping anything from the National Archives or the public in the future,” Mulvaney told CNN’s “New Day” host Brianna Keilar.

“And we knew the rules and yes, we taped them back together and yes, we made copies. And keep in mind, that’s important,” Mulvaney told Keilar.

Mulvaney went on to note that the Trump White House staff was well aware of the laws governing the intentional destruction of documents and the importance of that requirement. “As long as copies are preserved, you can pretty much do whatever you want to with the other documents,” he added. “But we all knew the rules and I never saw the intentional destruction of documents whatsoever.”

He also insisted that he only witnessed documents being “handled in the ordinary course of business.”

Keilar pressed Mulvaney on the topic asking, “You never heard about him ripping and flushing documents?”

That's when Mulvaney specified what he witnessed saying, “I saw him rip documents. I mean, we did."

Keilar also asked about the discussions suggesting Trump may have flushed documents. “The flushing, you never heard about him flushing documents?” Keilar asked the former chief of staff.

Per HuffPost, that question reportedly stems from a new report from The New York Times's Maggie Haberman who "released a pair of photos from her forthcoming book to back up her reporting that White House staffers regularly found ripped-up printing paper in the toilet of the presidential residence during Trump’s term in office."

Despite Haberman's reporting, Mulvaney there was "not a single time" he witnessed documents being flushed. Mulvaney's remarks come days after a flurry of reports about the search at Mar-a-Lago.

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