Manigault Newman, a longtime associate of the President Trump from his days hosting The Apprentice as well as a former White House advisor, has an explosive tell-all memoir coming out next week titled Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House. The Washington Post, which has obtained an advanced copy, reports that one of the most eye-poping stories in the book is about the President’s disposal of sensitive documents.
As The Post describes the story:
In early 2017, Manigault Newman says she walked Michael Cohen, then Trump’s personal lawyer, into the Oval Office for a meeting with Trump — and saw the president chewing up a piece of paper while Cohen was leaving the office. Another White House official confirmed that Manigault Newman brought Cohen into the White House and was later rebuked for it. The two remain in contact, according to people familiar with the relationship.
“I saw him put a note in his mouth. Since Trump was ever the germaphobe, I was shocked he appeared to be chewing and swallowing the paper. It must have been something very, very sensitive,” she writes in her book.
There is no proof that he chewed on paper, and several White House aides laughed at the assertion and said it was not true.
While this story is difficult to document beyond Manigault Newman’s words, it does conform to the known fact that Trump likes to destroy paper records. Previously, Politico had reported that Trump was in the habit of tearing of up White House correspondence and documents into tiny pieces, in defiance of laws requiring that they be preserved. Government officials have had to scotch tape those documents.
Aside from the destroying government records story, Manigault Newman also claims she was offered $15,000 a month in hush money to keep quiet after leaving the job. The new book also asserts, in keeping with many previous accounts, that the president is a racist.
As The Guardian, which also obtained an early copy, reports:
She also claims that she personally witnessed Trump use racial epithets about the White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s husband George Conway, who is half Filipino. “Would you look at this George Conway article?” she quotes the president as saying. “F**ing FLIP! Disloyal! Fucking Goo-goo.”
Both flip and goo-goo are terms of racial abuse for Filipinos.