In response to reports about Donald Trump's mishandling of presidential records, a former White House official told CNN this week, "He didn't think the rules applied to him."
CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel shared the quotation on Thursday night during a discussion about the scandal, which gained further traction Thursday thanks to a report that Trump flushed some documents down a White House toilet, causing it to become clogged.
"I just want to say that today of all days, I just find it remarkable Maggie Haberman's reporting about flushing these papers down, because we heard from day one that he was ripping up papers — that staffers had to run in and get it out of the waste basket and tape it back together," Gangel said. "When he knew that, he didn't want people to be taping those papers back together. Flushing them down the toilet, we do not know what his intent was, but it certainly was a way to circumvent the system, get around the Presidential Records Act, and it certainly looks guilty."
Asked why Trump would have flushed papers down the toilet, Nixon White House counsel John Dean said, "It just doesn't sound right, obviously. I think it speaks for itself. He's a man who has just ignored all the rules, standards, norms of the process. He doesn't obey the law. He just doesn't give a hoot. He's going to do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it."
Later, while discussing a separate report about gaps in White House phone records from Jan. 6, Gangel said: "I just want to repeat what John Dean just said about rules. What all of this says is, he wasn't following the rules. A former White House official said to me this week, 'He didn't think the rules applied to him, and that trickled down to everyone around him.'"
Watch the full discussion below.
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