Trump Eats His Words

For a guy who won't stop talking, the DFG sure knows how to keep his mouth shut when he has to.

Donald Trump destroyed documents. Routinely, and in clear violation of the Presidential Records Act.

He tore them into pieces. Sometimes he threw those pieces into the trash basket, where diligent federal employees would gather the pieces and tape them back together. Sometimes he flushed them down the toilet. And sometimes, he ate them.

He. Ate. Them.

The former President of the United States, one of the most powerful men in the world, stuffed strips of torn paper into that puckered sewer-hole of a mouth, chewed them up, and swallowed.

This really happened.

Unless we are to believe that Trump somehow developed a taste for Hammermill Copy Plus®, there is only one reason why he would do such a bilious thing: to ensure that no one could ever see what was written on those documents.

Needless to say, there are highly effective, legal means of keeping documents concealed, when one is the president. He could have classified them, for example. That would have kept prying eyes away until he was moldering in his grave. There are documents that crossed the desk of LBJ and Richard Nixon that have still not been made public.

But Trump didn’t do that. He destroyed documents in the way that crooks dispose of incriminating evidence. This was not George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton marking something top secret for reasons of national security. This was Karen Hill flushing her husband’s cocaine down the toilet before the feds could seize it.

And this is of a piece with Trump. If there is one thing that has been made abundantly clear about the Defeated Former Guy, it’s that he doesn’t want us to see the evidence. For a guy who won’t shut up, he sure knows how to keep quiet when silence serves his nefarious purposes.

Because of countless first-hand accounts, we know that Trump is an unrepentant bigot who makes racist comments all the time. Somewhere there are tapes, outtakes from The Apprentice, in which he drops n-bombs and other un-choice words. Noel Casler was among the first in the crew of that franchise to speak out about this. Six-plus years after the DFG began his campaign, those tapes have yet to surface.

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How many times on the campaign trail, and during the first few years of his presidency, did Trump promise to release his taxes? David Corn of Mother Jones tweeted this almost every day for the entire presidency:

David Corn @DavidCornDC

Today would be a good day for @realDonaldTrump to release his tax returns.

But it still hasn’t happened. The only reliable look at Trump’s finances—the jaw-dropping New York Times expose by Russ Beuttner and Susanne Craig that the paper of record could not have promoted less if it tried—showed gargantuan losses, year after year after year: over a billion dollars out the door over the course of a decade. Billion, with a “b”—as in broke or bankrupt or bust or belly-up.

We were told that we would hear all about Melania Trump’s immigration history. We are still waiting.

We never saw his medical records. Not only that, but his longtime personal physician said that Trump sent two behemoths to his office and physically seized those records. Perhaps these were among the documents flushed and/or eaten?

We did not hear about how close he came to dying of covid-19 in 2020, how dangerously low his blood oxygen levels were, what exactly the doctors did to save his life, until months later, in a Times report—and then in a book by his former chief of staff (who was probably a source for the original story). Trump denied some of the reporting, so still don’t know all the details.

Remember when he was rushed to Walter Reed Medical Center in November of 2019, and no one knew why? According to yet another book published well after the fact, he was there for a routine colonoscopy. (Why did he not just say so? Was he embarrassed that he was having a tube stuck up his ass? Was he afraid Karen Pence would Lady Macbeth her husband into taking over?) I don’t recall ever seeing official confirmation of this.

He refuses to give a sample of his DNA to the court in a defamation lawsuit brought by a journalist he (allegedly) raped in a department store dressing room.

We didn’t see his college transcripts. We didn’t see his high school transcripts. We didn’t see his SAT scores.

Even the truth about his criminal past is shrouded in secrecy. In 2015-16, the New York Times declined to revisit reporting about Trump’s long history with the mob that could be found in its own archives.

The FBI has files on Trump. He was friends for decades—we might even say he cultivated a friendship—with James Kallstrom, who rose through the Bureau’s ranks to head its New York office. Whether Trump was a “pocket informant,” as Craig Unger suggests in American Kompromat, or a full-on C.I., as has been argued on these pages, he was certainly feeding the Bureau information. How much? For what purpose? And what did he get in exchange? We can only surmise.

And then there are the documents from his ill-fated term in the White House.

The notes from his “perfect” phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine were locked away in that super secret vault. Have they been reviewed by anyone on Biden’s staff? How about the translator’s notes from his closed-door meeting with Putin in Helsinki? Was all of this in the boxes he brought with him to Mar-a-Lago?

Trump didn’t testify at either of his impeachment trials. He won’t testify before the January 6 Committee. Not only that, but he won’t allow any of his associates to do so, either. He claims executive privilege constantly, whether or not it is warranted, just as he habitually made anyone who came into his orbit sign NDAs—non-disclosure agreements.

What was the term for the payment he paid to Stormy Daniels that bought her silence? Hush money.

The loudmouth is obsessed with silence.

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Trump doesn’t want us to know these things because—duh—the truth is humiliating, if not outright damning:

Taxes will show that he’s a shitty businessman and a tax cheat, squandering the ample fortune his father left him.

Medical records will show that he’s morbidly obese, and possibly suffering from early-onset dementia.

School records will show poor grades and lousy SAT scores (unless the allegations of him paying someone smarter to take the test for him are true).

DNA records will show that he’s a rapist.

FBI files will show that he ratted out mobsters to save his own ass.

The Zelensky transcripts will show that he attempted to extort an ally for personal gain.

Translator notes will show that he capitulated bigly to Putin.

Testimony about January 6 will show that yes, he was actively engaged in a plot to overthrow the government and illegally remain in power.

These things bring shame, dishonor, and long prison sentences. Of course he wants us all to STFU about them.

And so Trump threatens lawsuits, and he ties things up in court, and he claims executive privilege, and he refuses to cooperate, and he bitches, and he moans, and he whines, and he blames Biden, and Obama, and Hillary, and the Democrats, and anyone else he can think of, and he distracts and deflects and projects.

And he clogs up the pipes, flushing down the toilet whatever incriminating documents he hasn’t already swallowed.

Photo credit: Mike Haw.

1. Eat shit, Mark Burnett.