In early February 2020 Donald Trump** told Bob Woodward that the COVID-19 virus was airborne. And in mid-March Trump** told Woodward that he “wanted to always play it down.” As did Woodward, I suppose: it wasn’t until early September 2020 that he made these things known when his book Rage was published. How many lives might have been saved had Woodward revealed months earlier what he had been told?
Today Maggie Haberman tweeted the news about her forthcoming book Confidence Man : “I'm thrilled to share the cover and title of my upcoming book about former President Trump!” Oh so cheerful. Haberman teased pre-orders with the news that Trump** was flushing documents down White House toilets. When did she learn about that? And why did she sit on the news, so to speak, for so long? How many documents might have been saved from a watery end if this presidential practice had been made public? And might someone, somewhere, have lost faith in the autocrat had Haberman revealed this grotesque detail earlier on? It’s at least possible.
The best comment on the matter I’ve seen is from academic, lawyer, and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa:
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you become aware that someone may have committed a federal felony, it’s important to call the FBI and not save it for your next book.[Now we can better understand why the defeated former president was always complaining about having to flush toilets ten or fifteen times. And, of course, it was the toilet, not the document flusher, that was to blame.]
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