According to members of his staff, Donald Trump had a reputation for being hard to brief and may have flushed meeting notes down the toilet in order to keep them.
During his time in office, Trump was not willing to sit for the presidential daily briefings. Ted Gistaro, the president's first briefer, told CBS News that the former president was the most difficult president to brief. The daily briefings for the president and vice president were delivered to different people.
Gistaro's successor, Beth Sanner, tried to encourage the president to read more of his briefings by including a one-page outline and a set of graphics.
According to reports, former President Trump flushed written notes down the White House toilets when he was in office. The Washington Post reported that he ripped and shredded documents. An entire team was dedicated to taping documents back together after they were shredded.
"I have seen Trump tear up papers, not into small, small pieces, but usually twice, so take a piece of paper, rip it once, and then rip it again and then throw it into the garbage pail," Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer, was quoted as
Several staff members said that Trump asked officials if he could keep the documents that he received.
The president would sometimes ask if he could keep it. Mick Mulvaney spoke to CNN on Friday. The White House had teams devoted to preserving official documents.
Though Mulvaney would not draw a direct line between Trump's request to keep records and the search of his Mar-a-Lago residence in pursuit of classified documents, his comments echoed those of JohnBolton, Trump's one-time national security advisor.
The president would often ask if he could keep it. CBS News spoke to the man. The intelligence briefers would say "Well, sir, we'd prefer to take that back", but sometimes they forgot.
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