New toilet photos back up bombshell claims about Trump flushing documents

According to an exclusive report from Axios, photos have been obtained showing illegally shredded documents in both a White House toilet and on Air Force One during Donald Trump's administration.

In February of this year, it was reported that White House staffers revealed that the former president was tearing up documents and dumping them in White House toilets causing headaches and backed-up plumbing.

At that time, the New York Times reported, "While in office, the former president blithely flouted the Presidential Records Act, which required him to preserve written communications concerning his official duties" and added that "Trump routinely tore up documents and after leaving office brought substantial written materials back to Mar-a-Lago. A Trump spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment about the plumbing matter."

Trump pooh-poohed the report at the time and lashed out at the Times' Maggie Haberman -- and now she has produced photos backing up the reporting.

"The revelation by Haberman, whose coverage as a New York Times White House correspondent was followed obsessively by Trump, adds a vivid new dimension to his lapses in preserving government documents. Axios was provided an exclusive first look at some of her reporting," Axios is reporting while also producing two photos that show paper fragments in the toilets that contain Trump's tell-tale writing with a Sharpie.

In one photo, New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik's name can be seen.

Axios adds, "Haberman— who obtained the photos recently — shared them with us ahead of the Oct. 4 publication of her book, 'Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.'"

The report adds that Haberman explained, "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."

You can read more -- and see the photos -- here.