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Speaker 1: Hey, Matt, Hey, Jason, do you remember what we were

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Speaker 1: doing back in the summer of twenty twenty two. It

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Speaker 1: had to do with Donald Trump and some pretty unusual

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Speaker 1: allegations of document removal at the White House. Here, I'll

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Speaker 1: give you a hint.

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Speaker 2: His staff used to periodically find wands of printed paper

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Speaker 2: clogging the White House toilets.

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Speaker 3: Hit it.

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Speaker 1: I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold. I spend most of my

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Speaker 1: days getting documents from the government.

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Speaker 4: I'm attorney Matt Tapic, and I fight them in court

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Speaker 4: to open their files when they don't want to.

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Speaker 5: From Bloomberg and no smiling.

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Speaker 1: This is Disclosure, a podcast about buying loose government secrets,

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Speaker 1: the Freedom of Information Act, and the unexpected places that

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Speaker 1: takes us. The toilets. Matt, I can't believe we're still

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Speaker 1: talking about the toilets.

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Speaker 4: Well, we never stopped talking about somebody allegedly flushing documents

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Speaker 4: down the toilet during Donald Trump's first term. Trump is

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Speaker 4: back in office. The toilets are more important than ever.

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Speaker 1: And God, Matt, what a journey, What a perfect records journey.

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Speaker 4: It started with the Zoom call back in August twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty two.

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Speaker 6: Hang on I'm just searching YouTube.

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Speaker 4: For toilet noises.

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Speaker 1: Our producers Sean and Heather were there for toilet noises.

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Speaker 4: Okay, we should estimate how many presidents records have fit

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Speaker 4: inside the toilet.

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Speaker 5: We should, Matt, I mean, this is a big deal.

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Speaker 1: Presidents are supposed to save everything, yes, by law, and

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Speaker 1: if they're going down the toilet, then they're not going

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Speaker 1: to the National Archives like.

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Speaker 3: They're supposed to exactly. This news cycle has moved so quickly,

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Speaker 3: and it wasn't just about the toilets.

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Speaker 1: Some Trump officials put select documents in so called burn bags,

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Speaker 1: where they were destroyed rather than preserved.

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Speaker 2: Former President Trump improperly took classified and even top secret

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Speaker 2: documents to his Mara Algo residents in Florida.

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Speaker 3: Again, these are allegations. Great, and then what happens.

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Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter, tweets a picture

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Speaker 1: of a toilet that she got from a Trump White

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Speaker 1: House source. We now have pictures of Trump's toilet with

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Speaker 1: the flushed documents.

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Speaker 3: I urge people to zoom in. You can see it's

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Speaker 3: a sharpie.

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Speaker 6: You can see it's his handwriting.

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Speaker 7: Describe that photo, Matt, Well, it's a toilet and I'm

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Speaker 7: looking down into the bowl and down at the bottom

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Speaker 7: is some ripped up pieces of paper with some all

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Speaker 7: camps sharpie.

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Speaker 5: Writing on it.

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Speaker 7: According to a source, this is a White House toilet.

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Speaker 1: But here's the thing that's like bizarre to me, Like,

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Speaker 1: let's just think about this photo. Right in Siri, somebody

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Speaker 1: probably threw many pieces of paper in the toilet bowl,

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Speaker 1: flushed it, and not everything went through right. They didn't

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Speaker 1: just throw it in the toilet bowl and then walk away.

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Speaker 1: They absolutely flushed it.

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Speaker 4: If you're one of these people who's taping back together

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Speaker 4: the ripped up things and you come across the presidential

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Speaker 4: record lying in the toilet, and you have a duty

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Speaker 4: to preserve it, I guess you don't put antendident, right,

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Speaker 4: So the picture is the preservation of the record that like,

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Speaker 4: that picture should end up in the National Archives.

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Speaker 5: Oh, that will end up in the National Archives. Absolutely,

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Speaker 5: it's a presidential record. It may in the toilet.

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Speaker 3: I mean it's got his handwriting on it.

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Speaker 1: That absolutely ends up and the presidential ogurn.

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Speaker 4: So now all this stuff Trump said before about toilet

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Speaker 4: capacity being too small.

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Speaker 8: People are flushing toilets ten times, fifteen times, so EPA

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Speaker 8: is looking at that very strongly, at my suggestion.

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Speaker 4: Seeks showers and toilets, toilets, toilets.

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Speaker 9: We won't talk about toilets, toilets, toilets.

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Speaker 4: And what goes with a sink of a shower.

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Speaker 5: It all makes just perfect sense.

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Speaker 1: But Matt, what happened next hours after that toilet picture

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Speaker 1: emerged more big news drop.

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Speaker 2: FBI has executed an unprecedented search warrant at President Donald

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Speaker 2: Trump's mar A Lago estate.

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Speaker 10: We know the Justice Department has an active investigation into

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Speaker 10: the former president.

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Speaker 1: The age of FBI agents on mar Alago supposedly related

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Speaker 1: to all the records that were taken.

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Speaker 7: So you got to wonder how many public records have

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Speaker 7: gone down the toilets, what happened to them?

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Speaker 5: Where did they go?

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Speaker 7: Did anyone go looking exactly?

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Speaker 3: I was like light bulb, got a FOI of that.

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Speaker 1: So I blanketed all these agencies, Apartment, Homeland Security, Secret Service, FBI, CIA,

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Speaker 1: and SA POJ so basically everybody.

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Speaker 11: But what kind of records did you ask for?

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Speaker 1: Records about either flushing certain documents down the toilet or

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Speaker 1: just records of that were brought to mar A Lago

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Speaker 1: and sort of looking for any kind of communications or discussions,

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Speaker 1: budget records, how many people that they get there to

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Speaker 1: try to piece things back together. So it was a

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Speaker 1: very broad request to all these different agencies, and I

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Speaker 1: got a response from the FBI, and FBI responded with

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Speaker 1: what's known as a glomar. They said that they can

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Speaker 1: either confirm nor deny you know that these records exist, yes,

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Speaker 1: because to do so would be tantamount to acknowledging the

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Speaker 1: existence or non existence of an investigation. So that was

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Speaker 1: like the first clue that the FBI was investigating this.

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Speaker 1: I reached out to Matt and I said, Hey, I

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Speaker 1: want to file some lawsuits. Matt kindly agreed to that,

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Speaker 1: and we suit all of the agencies that I followed

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Speaker 1: requests with five separate lawsuits for all of these records

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Speaker 1: related to bringing documents tomorrow lago.

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Speaker 4: So these are for records were moved from the White

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Speaker 4: House that would cover allegations of documents flushed, hauled out

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Speaker 4: in bags or getting taken to mar a lago. Right,

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Speaker 4: So when we file a suit in the complaint, if

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Speaker 4: it gets linked somewhere or it's like embedded in an

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Speaker 4: opening paragraph, that's the only thing you're going to see,

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Speaker 4: so we try to make that kind of plungey. So

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Speaker 4: this one says, playing if Jason Leopold brings his Freedom

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Speaker 4: of Information Act suit to force defendants Federal Bureau of

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Speaker 4: Investigation and he was proudor of Justice to produce documents

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Speaker 4: about any presidential records luting classified records, it were removed

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Speaker 4: from the White House to borrow lago or flush down

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Speaker 4: White House toilets, potentially in violation of federal law.

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Speaker 1: So we file the lawsuits and then we wait and

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Speaker 1: we wait.

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Speaker 7: But says you couldn't help yourself. I know you didn't

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Speaker 7: stop there.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I had this amazing source. She worked in the government,

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Speaker 3: and she.

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Speaker 1: Told me that when the news was surfacing about destroying

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Speaker 1: records and flushing down the toilet, she gave me this

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Speaker 1: great insight, and she told me to hit up GSA,

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Speaker 1: the General Service Administration, and the National Park Service because

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Speaker 1: the toilet in the Oval office is sort of overseen

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Speaker 1: by the White House Usher's office. If that guests clog

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Speaker 1: or they need to have someone come out and repair it,

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Speaker 1: that comes from like usually GSA.

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Speaker 5: So anyway, I'm just looking at it now.

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Speaker 1: Was a perfect request met all records of clumbing calls

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Speaker 1: for former President Trump's residents bathroom toilet and the toilet

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Speaker 1: next to the Oval Office, and notes and reports related

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Speaker 1: to those health all records of plumbing repairs and fixture

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Speaker 1: replacement invoices, contracts, photographs. Because if you're sticking paper in

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Speaker 1: the toilet, I mean you would think.

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Speaker 3: I would get clogged. I filed this request.

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Speaker 1: What I thought was like, oh, this is such a

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Speaker 1: good request, they must have records. I ended up getting

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Speaker 1: this response from GSA, and it says, mister Leopold, thank

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Speaker 1: you for taking the time to speak for me today.

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Speaker 1: For issues like a clogged toilet in the Oval Office,

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Speaker 1: it is the Usher's Office, which is part of the

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Speaker 1: Executive Office of the President, which would be the ones

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Speaker 1: to handle that type of issue. GSA would potentially have

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Speaker 1: records related to the larger repairs of the toilet in

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Speaker 1: the White House, but the Usher's Office is the one

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Speaker 1: that conducts the maintenance in the White House residents and

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Speaker 1: therefore would not have records related to any restrooms in

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Speaker 1: that part of the building.

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Speaker 3: So I didn't get any records.

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Speaker 5: But I had no idea about this.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I got this amazing education on the

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Speaker 1: White House toilet, which I think is a really important

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Speaker 1: thing to have.

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Speaker 4: Right now, you're saying, if it just needs to be plunged,

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Speaker 4: then the usher's office deals with it. It's a presidential

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Speaker 4: record exactly, So that's a dead end.

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Speaker 12: You can't foil those yet. The Presidential Records Act, that's

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Speaker 12: the law that governs presidential records which are outside SCOPEFOYA

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Speaker 12: makes you wait five years before anything is available, And personally,

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Speaker 12: I think this is ridiculous. The president has an incredible.

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Speaker 5: Amount of power.

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Speaker 4: We should be allowed to monitor the president and hold

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Speaker 4: the president accountable just as much or even much more

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Speaker 4: than federal agencies. And then if it's bigger, if it's

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Speaker 4: big enough, if it's like this is so bad it's

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Speaker 4: in the pipes, they got to come out and roday.

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Speaker 5: I then it's a GSA.

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Speaker 4: So if it didn't flush enough to make.

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Speaker 1: Make a GSAH, they had no records, man, So that's

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Speaker 1: it right, Hold on a second, we might be on

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Speaker 1: our own figure this out. So I just went down

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Speaker 1: some rabbit holes with our producers, Heather and Sean. Not

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Speaker 1: everything you flush causes trouble immediately, So we wondered if

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Speaker 1: you flush a lot of papers and they get past

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Speaker 1: the White House itself. Could there be some sort of sign.

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Speaker 6: Honestly, the reality of there being actual sewage problems because

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Speaker 6: of this is it could check out because there were

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Speaker 6: these big sinkholes both at the White House and on

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Speaker 6: mar A Lago's lawn, and the theory was that it

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Speaker 6: really to sewage lines.

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Speaker 5: Oh my god, wait, is there like stories about this.

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Speaker 6: I'm reading a Forbes article in twenty eighteen that talks

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Speaker 6: about these sinkholes, the sinkhole in the White House lawn,

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Speaker 6: and it says, almost precisely a year ago, a massive

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Speaker 6: sinkhole appeared in the front of the Marra A Lago resort.

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Speaker 3: Hold On, hold on, hold on? Is this a pattern?

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Speaker 1: Who knowse we got to look into this, all right,

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Speaker 1: So we went on a little bit of a journey

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Speaker 1: here trying to get more details about whether it was

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Speaker 1: even possible for something like flushing papers to cause a sinkhole.

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Speaker 1: And Sean might be on a watch list now thanks

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Speaker 1: to a post he made in the Washington DC subreddit.

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Speaker 4: I just got a terrifying comment on Reddit.

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Speaker 2: A lot of people in this sub or government workers

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Speaker 2: with security clearances, and this very odd and very specific

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Speaker 2: question about the White House sewage system will set off

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Speaker 2: people's suspicious radar.

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Speaker 6: Jun's day off Reddit.

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Speaker 2: I'm deleting it right now. I'm hitting delete. I don't

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Speaker 2: want the FBI showing up at my door. Are you

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Speaker 2: the toilet bomber?

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Speaker 3: Did you delete it?

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Speaker 6: Because now I think it's even more suspicious.

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Speaker 2: I thought that the moment after I hit delete.

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Speaker 1: Too, okay, But then Matt, we finally finally hit pay dirt.

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Speaker 7: Ye.

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Speaker 10: Imagine like going going to Harvard or Stanford and getting

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Speaker 10: you know, this law degree and becoming a page and

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Speaker 10: going to the White House and somebody.

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Speaker 9: Handing you a plunger.

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Speaker 5: This is Patrick Arner.

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Speaker 10: I mean, it's my living so I mean I'm out

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Speaker 10: shying away from it.

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Speaker 1: But come on, He's what you might call a celebrity

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Speaker 1: presidential plumbing expert. He became a media darling during the

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Speaker 1: pandemic and even talk to other media outlets about, well,

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Speaker 1: this subject, exactly what would happen if someone at the

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Speaker 1: White House flushed documents down the toilet?

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Speaker 5: First, we wanted to.

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Speaker 1: Know what happens when you flush paper down the toilet.

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Speaker 5: In general, it's.

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Speaker 9: Going to depend on what kind of paper we're talking about.

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Speaker 10: I mean, you can't flush down baby wipes down a

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Speaker 10: toilet without it becoming a major issue. If you start

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Speaker 10: using you know, printer, paper, card stuck anything like that,

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Speaker 10: you know you're going to have pretty severe issues pretty soon.

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Speaker 10: It's going to be pretty apparent pretty quickly.

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Speaker 4: Well, I guess the question remains, will the papers go

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Speaker 4: down the toilet? In a normal situation, It'll.

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Speaker 10: Go down the toilet more than likely, but it probably

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Speaker 10: won't make it past the trap of the toilet.

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Speaker 9: And if you look on the side of a toilet

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Speaker 9: you kind of see like an.

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Speaker 10: S shape, that's your trap. But especially if you're looking

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Speaker 10: at I guess something that's called a pressure assistant toilet,

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Speaker 10: which you would find in a lot of commercial applications, you.

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Speaker 9: Know, very nice houses. Those will absolutely do it.

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Speaker 10: In fact, you go to Home People or Low's tomorrow,

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Speaker 10: you'll see toilet that are advertise that you can flush

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Speaker 10: pulballs down.

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Speaker 4: Impressive. God bless America.

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Speaker 1: I love this guy Patrick because he's so serious about

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Speaker 1: the work that he does. Let's see what he has

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Speaker 1: to say about what might happen if the Oval office

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Speaker 1: toilets are able to flesh a pool ball and the

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Speaker 1: papers make it down into the pipes of the White House.

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Speaker 10: It depends on what type of piping we're gonna have

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Speaker 10: on the sewer. Originally there was probably piping that was

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Speaker 10: made out of logs, literally logs. Odds are right now

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Speaker 10: it's PBC, which is standard. It's where you have what

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Speaker 10: I have, what most people have.

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Speaker 9: Odds are.

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Speaker 10: What's happening is it's getting flushed down and it would

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Speaker 10: make it a ways down the line until it either

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Speaker 10: you know, comes to a belly in the line where

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Speaker 10: the line actually dips and SAgs a little bit, or

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Speaker 10: maybe it possibly makes a bend.

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Speaker 9: In essence, what will end up happening is it'll almost

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Speaker 9: form like a small net.

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Speaker 10: It only needs to catch a small a small part

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Speaker 10: of a bend or you know, a fitting that's jutting

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Speaker 10: out slightly, and then it now creates a net and

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Speaker 10: it just starts grabbing waste, foreign objects like paper, feminine projects,

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Speaker 10: anything like that.

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Speaker 1: Incredible, okay, And you would think, first of all, it's

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Speaker 1: the president, he has a super secret toilet. No, this

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Speaker 1: underscore is that the president is just like every other person.

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Speaker 1: It's you know, it's it's just a regular toilet. PVC piping,

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Speaker 1: I'm one of you. I mean, basically, what Patrick is

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Speaker 1: saying is that if you flush these foreign objects down

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Speaker 1: the toilet, it's it's sort of going to create a

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Speaker 1: traffic jam. Right, What could that lead to?

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Speaker 10: If there is that belly, if there is a bend,

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Speaker 10: if there's a weak spot in line, you actually have

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Speaker 10: a strong potential of too much pressure building up and

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Speaker 10: forcing a separation and the line. If a line is weak,

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Speaker 10: if it's cast iron piping, which is possible, it could.

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Speaker 9: Be deteriorating already.

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Speaker 10: So you start having all these objects, you know, start

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Speaker 10: piling up, piling up, and all this pressure starts backing up.

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Speaker 10: Eventually something's gonna give you did see, They're going to

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Speaker 10: back up the way it came, or it's going to

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Speaker 10: burst the pipe.

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Speaker 5: Oh wow, I know.

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Speaker 4: Right, Okay, So just to recap, here's where we are

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Speaker 4: with the baber's in the toilet. Let's say they've cleared

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Speaker 4: the toilet, they've gone through, they've cleared the white house.

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Speaker 4: Now they're out of the yard, and they hit a

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Speaker 4: bend in the pipes. There's this big backup and now

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Speaker 4: the pipe's ruptured, right, yes, yes, exactly.

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Speaker 9: And then you have two things that'll happen.

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Speaker 10: Either sewage can start to seep up out of the

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Speaker 10: ground depending on how deep the pipe is, or it

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Speaker 10: can start settling underneath the pipe and starting to spread

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Speaker 10: out and start actually eroding the soil and the dirt

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Speaker 10: and all the compaction.

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Speaker 9: That you have in that area. This isn't just a theory.

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Speaker 10: This is actually a pretty prevalent issue something at insurance

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Speaker 10: companies look for. In fact, there's been major issues in Chicago,

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Speaker 10: major issues in San Francisco where sewage lines. First, the

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Speaker 10: compaction's not properly done if maybe it wasn't a grade,

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Speaker 10: and that soil in that dirt starts to erode, and

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Speaker 10: then sinkholes can the potentially start to fill.

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Speaker 4: Matt sinkholes, sink holes, sinkholes.

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Speaker 1: In May of twenty eighteen, there was a sinkhole on

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Speaker 1: the White House lawn and it was spreading and.

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Speaker 5: There's more of that.

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Speaker 1: We gave Patrick a photo of the White House sinkhole

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Speaker 1: to get his take on it.

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Speaker 10: I can't definitively say and I gotta say that, but

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Speaker 10: if you look at it, it's not just forming, you know.

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Speaker 9: A perfect oval or a perfect circle.

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Speaker 10: It almost looks linear where it's starting to slope downwards.

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Speaker 10: And when you have sewage piping, you have something called grade.

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Speaker 10: You have to have a certain amount of grade when

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Speaker 10: it comes to sewer pipes because it's all gravity fed.

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Speaker 10: The waste must slowly roll downhill. That looks like a

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Speaker 10: going linear and it looks like it's going downhill towards

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Speaker 10: a road which would probably tie into a city sewer

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Speaker 10: or potentially tie into a city sewer.

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Speaker 5: Okay, so, Matt, so this is my theory.

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Speaker 1: This is you know, I see the reports about sinkholes

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Speaker 1: over the years, including sinkhole at Mora Lago, and you

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Speaker 1: know pictures of toilet with papers with Trump's handwriting on it.

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Speaker 1: I'm not stating definitively here that papers going down the

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Speaker 1: toilet created that sinkhole in twenty eighteen, but that sinkhole

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Speaker 1: was a big deal in twenty eighteen. And now Patrick

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Speaker 1: tells us that one way in which that can happen

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Speaker 1: is by flushing papers down the toilet. Come on, man,

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Speaker 1: what do you think about that? That's that's serious? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean we got to get Patrick. We we neat

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Speaker 1: Patrick as an expert witness to testify in our Foya

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Speaker 1: case to get people down there.

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Speaker 4: There's no foil. I mean, there isn't. This is the problem.

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Speaker 4: The problem is there isn't a foyer case. At the

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Speaker 4: end of the day, the problem is you, the American public,

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Speaker 4: according to our laws, don't have a right to know

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Speaker 4: whether the president flushed records down the toilet. You don't

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Speaker 4: get to know that. And you also don't get to

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Speaker 4: know whether, if that happened, he caused a sinkhole. Therein

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Speaker 4: lies the problem. Jason Toy is great on a lot

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Speaker 4: of things, but when it comes to presidential records, there's

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Speaker 4: a gaping hole.

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Speaker 1: Well okay, fair, fair, But what do you think about

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Speaker 1: the fact that he's saying that you know that this

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Speaker 1: could cause a sinkhole, and that there actually was a

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Speaker 1: sinkhole on the White House long.

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Speaker 4: I mean, we have some solid, circumstantial evidence that there

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Speaker 4: was regular flushing of papers down the toilet that led

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Speaker 4: to a sinkhole.

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Speaker 1: I just want to note this was in twenty eighteen, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but there was also another sinkhole in twenty nineteen, another

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Speaker 1: one in twenty nineteen, there was another one, and in

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Speaker 1: addition to that, there was also a sinkhole at Mara

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Speaker 1: a Lago in twenty seventy. Oh well, so, Matt, we've

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Speaker 1: made it all the way to the White House lawn

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Speaker 1: and we think that document flushing could have caused the sinkhole.

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Speaker 1: But remember there was another part of this document journey.

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Speaker 1: There's a chance that documents made it through the White

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Speaker 1: House pipes and out.

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Speaker 5: Into DC's being a smull sewer.

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Speaker 1: System, and we're going to get into that on the

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Speaker 1: other side of the break, Heather, I want to go

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Speaker 1: on a sewer tour.

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Speaker 6: You really want to go on a sewer tour. So

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Speaker 6: with all this talk of sinkholes and allegedly flushing stuff

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Speaker 6: down the White House toilet, I thought it might be

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Speaker 6: interesting to see if there had ever been any major

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Speaker 6: obstructions in the sewer near the White House. So I

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Speaker 6: made a request with DC Water for reports and investigative

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Speaker 6: records regarding quote, large obstructions caused by a buildup of

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Speaker 6: non biodegradable solids in the DC sewers that DC Water

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Speaker 6: dealt with from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty three. That

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Speaker 6: time frame captured the entire Trip administration and the Biden administration,

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Speaker 6: or at least what we had had of it so far,

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Speaker 6: and it took a few months, but finally I got

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Speaker 6: more than nine hundred pages of material in three different

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Speaker 6: data sets, which was a lot.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 6: So to see what happened where I built something? Can

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Speaker 6: I get a drum roll?

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Speaker 5: Double bass, drum roll? Whoa what? So you made this?

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Speaker 5: I made this?

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Speaker 4: Okay, you got skills.

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Speaker 7: Wow?

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Speaker 6: I love maps. Does someone want to describe what they're seeing?

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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, this is Dcwater Reports twenty sixteen to twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty three, and there's a green DAT for the White House,

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Speaker 4: so it looks like it's about I don't know, a

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Speaker 4: couple square miles worth. And then there's a bunch of

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Speaker 4: different colored dats that are kind of scattered all around,

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Speaker 4: like dupot circle, logan circle, Chinatown. And there's red dots

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Speaker 4: and red squares, in blue dots, in dark blue dots.

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Speaker 1: So these are all sewer obstructions reported near the White House.

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Speaker 6: Yes, that was a perfect explanation, all of these dots.

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Speaker 6: There are different markers on the screen here, and the

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Speaker 6: different colors are for the different terms. So red means

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Speaker 6: that Trump was an office, and light blue means Biden

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Speaker 6: was an office, and dark blue actually represents Obama's final

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Speaker 6: year in office because I had just a little bit

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Speaker 6: of data from there. One thing to note here, all

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Speaker 6: the addresses were actually redacted, so unless it's an intersection here,

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Speaker 6: these dots are not exact. They're more like block numbers.

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Speaker 6: What I was able to.

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Speaker 4: Do so they gave you to like to the eight

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Speaker 4: hundred black or the twelve hundred black exactly.

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Speaker 6: So if you go over to the folders where it

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Speaker 6: says Obama, Trump, Biden, you can turn off Obama, you

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Speaker 6: can turn off Biden, you can turn off Trump, you know,

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Speaker 6: so you can isolate each of these groups here looking

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Speaker 6: at all, what I noticed is that most of the

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Speaker 6: incidents in the immediate vicinity of the White House are red.

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Speaker 5: And who likes wearing red ties.

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Speaker 6: Let me just say how this breaks down. We have

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Speaker 6: four years of incidents from Trump and roughly for from

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Speaker 6: non Trump administrations. I made a second request to get

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Speaker 6: the rest of the Biden years, but as you know,

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Speaker 6: it sometimes takes a long time to get records back.

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Speaker 8: Right.

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Speaker 6: But if we're just looking at incidents within a block

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Speaker 6: of the White House grounds, then there are thirteen within

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Speaker 6: a block during the Trump years versus two from Biden

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Speaker 6: and two from Obama. So I just wondered, is it

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Speaker 6: even possible for someone, say in the Oval office, to

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Speaker 6: cause trouble for their neighbors of their flushing stuff down

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Speaker 6: the toilet that's not supposed to be flushed. So I

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Speaker 6: called up our friend Patrick Garner again, and here's what

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Speaker 6: he had to say.

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Speaker 10: Yes, one hundred percent, especially if they're on a combined

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Speaker 10: which you've eliminated that they are.

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Speaker 6: What he means there is a combined sewer system, which

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Speaker 6: basically means that to save money, these cities built the

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Speaker 6: same pipes for the storm water and for waste to

444
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 6: travel through instead of separate pipes, where as the storm

445
00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:24,680
Speaker 6: water and the waste would have their own tubes. And

446
00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:28,240
Speaker 6: most of the sewer system in this area, specifically around

447
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:31,560
Speaker 6: the White House, is on a combined sewer system. So

448
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:34,399
Speaker 6: all of the dots that you're seeing on this map

449
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 6: are in the combined sewer system, which means that they

450
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:42,240
Speaker 6: share the same roadways essentially, So if there's a blockage

451
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:46,640
Speaker 6: from one address, it's definitely causing issues upstream.

452
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:48,560
Speaker 9: Think of it as a slide and a bunch of

453
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 9: kids are going down. You've blocked that slide.

454
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,640
Speaker 13: Everybody that's trying to get into that slide is now

455
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:55,360
Speaker 13: backed up and they're going to be affected.

456
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 1: That is such a great visual, although can I just

457
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:02,160
Speaker 1: say that the children on the slide and my visual

458
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:04,160
Speaker 1: are giant pieces.

459
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 6: Of Okay, So one thing we don't know is exactly

460
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:09,600
Speaker 6: which direction those pipes flow from the White House, or

461
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 6: even what the pipes are like now, and you can

462
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 6: imagine why the government would want to keep that a

463
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 6: bit of a secret. But I did do a ton

464
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 6: of research on this and I found some really useful

465
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 6: information thanks to a few nerds who really love tunnels.

466
00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:26,399
Speaker 6: I found this article from nineteen thirty four where this

467
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:30,120
Speaker 6: reporter does a sewer tour whoa, and he traveled through

468
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 6: all the tunnels, which are so crazy.

469
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,120
Speaker 4: This is when I'm glad I'm the lawyer and not

470
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 4: the reporter.

471
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:35,879
Speaker 5: Have fun, buddy.

472
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 6: I found this really old map from the eighteen nineties

473
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:42,719
Speaker 6: that actually did have some pretty comprehensive information about the

474
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 6: pipes coming out of the White House, down to the

475
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 6: size of the pipes and everything, but it's super old.

476
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 6: And then I found this better map from the nineteen eighties,

477
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:54,439
Speaker 6: and I actually sent some friends on an expedition to

478
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 6: the Library of Congress to retrieve it and take some

479
00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,280
Speaker 6: pictures of it. It shows some pipes sort of snaking

480
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 6: through that park just south of the White House. So

481
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 6: I can't be certain, but what I do know is

482
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:07,919
Speaker 6: that the main pumping station that takes all of the

483
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,119
Speaker 6: sewage to the treatment plant is southeast of the White House.

484
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 6: And this stuff is all way more complicated, especially when

485
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,119
Speaker 6: it rains, but it at least shows a path the

486
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 6: sewage could travel.

487
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 4: So where did we leave off with Patrick?

488
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 6: Okay? So one of my questions to him was, like,

489
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 6: if hypothetically somebody at the White House who's putting stuff

490
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 6: down the toilet is causing trouble for their neighbors, how

491
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 6: far like are we talking like a block or two

492
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 6: blocks or further?

493
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,399
Speaker 13: So you would have to put down a great deal

494
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:40,400
Speaker 13: to be affecting anything past like a block or two,

495
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 13: to be honest with you, But you could flush something

496
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 13: at the White House, allegedly whatever, and cross pass like

497
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 13: three addresses and nobody has an issue, and you're carrying

498
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:51,480
Speaker 13: the same waste, and now you're at an address that

499
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 13: has to be part of my friend's cast Iron or

500
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 13: Orangeburg or something, and now their pipes are becoming more narrow,

501
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 13: so even if if that bypasses a couple of addresses,

502
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 13: it could still very much be of issue somewhere else.

503
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 9: Water and waste travels. It can be very, very very deceptive.

504
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 4: So for example, if it was say a couple of

505
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 4: White House documents and like a couple of big mac rappers,

506
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:18,919
Speaker 4: and he did that all at once, that could do it.

507
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 6: So in my follow up call with Patrick, he actually

508
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:23,360
Speaker 6: had a question.

509
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 3: For me out of curiosity.

510
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 13: Did you see if those dates are corresponded with any

511
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 13: current events around that time.

512
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 6: Any major events from the Trump administration?

513
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 5: Oh?

514
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:37,680
Speaker 4: Interesting, good sleuthing, Patrick and Heather.

515
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 6: Well, I did look into this, and here's what I found.

516
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 6: The first one is May eleven, twenty seventeen, and that's

517
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 6: a twentieth Street and G Street Northwest. Does anybody remember

518
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:51,880
Speaker 6: what happened in May twenty seventeen?

519
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: Me think, Let me think, Robert Maler, keep going. Muller

520
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 1: was appointed special counsel.

521
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 6: So on May ninth, twenty seventeen, FBI Director James Comy

522
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 6: was fired.

523
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 4: Oh, Comy was fired, and then two days later there's

524
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 4: this event. Oh so it just as problem obstructed caused, grease, remedy, decreaser.

525
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 6: So not a ton of information there, obviously.

526
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 1: But if you wanted to get rid of documents, that

527
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: would be a good time, right.

528
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 6: I mean, what we do know is that there was

529
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 6: an obstruction and it's almost on the same block as

530
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 6: the White House one two three blocks to the west.

531
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 1: At that time, and we would have to check the

532
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: economies in the toilet.

533
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 5: No pun intended that These.

534
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 6: Next two incidents from July twenty eighteen, they're both on

535
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 6: the same block, which is the eight hundred block of

536
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 6: Connecticut Avenue, just north of the White House North Lawn.

537
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 6: And both of these incidents happened both before and after

538
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,920
Speaker 6: Trump's meeting with Putin at the helsy Key Summit. There

539
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 6: are a few more of these incidents, but listen, this

540
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 6: is all obviously circumstantial.

541
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 4: It's all a circumstance, Yes, sir, I think this should

542
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 4: call pa circumstantial.

543
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,199
Speaker 6: Not to be a lawyer or anything, but guess it

544
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 6: is interesting that these incidents are super close to the

545
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 6: White House. And I did ask Patrick about that, and

546
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:17,919
Speaker 6: you know, he basically was like, based off of what

547
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 6: you're showing, just that there's a huge increase of events

548
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 6: around the White House and then a big drop off

549
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 6: during the next president's term, Like, it's not crazy to

550
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 6: think that people putting stuff down the toilet is causing

551
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 6: a bunch of trouble for their neighbors. And that's his

552
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 6: professional opinion as a plumber. I mean, listen, this doesn't

553
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 6: prove anything. The flow path may not be what we expect,

554
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 6: but it's plausible to think that it does flow in

555
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 6: some of the areas that we're seeing on this map here. Okay,

556
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 6: case closed, no case open, Matt, case open. But this

557
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 6: is also just the power of the FOYA is that

558
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:58,959
Speaker 6: you can get all of this information in a bunch

559
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 6: of different ways, and I was able to visualize it

560
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 6: in some way totally.

561
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 4: So we have an idea that there may have been

562
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 4: some instructions.

563
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: Right, So Sean, our producer, wondered if there might be

564
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: a way to actually retrieve those documents after they'd been flushed, since,

565
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: after all, these are presidential records and the law does

566
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 1: require that they be preserved.

567
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 2: All right, I want to interject for a second, because

568
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 2: there's a thing called a fat bird. I don't know

569
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 2: if you guys are familiar with this phrase. No, Well,

570
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 2: it's essentially where a bunch of sewage kind of congeals

571
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 2: into a giant mass in the sewers. My point is

572
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 2: there is a chance that some intrepid splunkers could find

573
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 2: these documents in the sewage system somewhere, if you can

574
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 2: get to it.

575
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 9: All right, let's play that out a little bit.

576
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 5: That's amazing. By the way, where.

577
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,320
Speaker 9: Does the White House flushings?

578
00:28:58,760 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 5: Where do they go?

579
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 4: They go into the city of DC's like sanitary system.

580
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: That's by the way, guys, I truly think this is

581
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: a great story and would like to pitch it like this.

582
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 3: This feels like, I don't know, a Nicholas Cage movie.

583
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 2: My question, Jason, then, is, if we can figure it out,

584
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 2: are you willing to fly to d C with us,

585
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 2: put on some very very tall waiters and go looking

586
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 2: for these fat birds?

587
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 9: Well, let me just ask this, what would we find fatbirds?

588
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 2: Yes, giant giant masses of waste, potentially with the paper

589
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 2: still in it.

590
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:36,959
Speaker 5: Yeah, but what the paper are disintegrated by?

591
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 10: Now?

592
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 4: Okay, Jason, please tell me we found some sort of

593
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 4: answer at least would the paper be there?

594
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: Well, we asked our pal Patrick about fat bergs.

595
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 10: That's a disgusting and also very interesting theory and probably

596
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 10: also a metaphor for our time right now.

597
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 7: But I don't know.

598
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 9: I mean, it's theoretically possible.

599
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 10: I don't know if it would be legible or anything,

600
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 10: because at that point everything would be and jealing together.

601
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 9: Who knows. I mean, that's something that's gonna haunt my

602
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 9: dreams tonight.

603
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: So not the answer we were looking for from Patrick.

604
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: But we did find someone with a little more direct

605
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: knowledge about fat birds, and you'll hear from him after

606
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: the break. Believe it or not, Matt, we have an

607
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: expert on fat burgs. I want to say, ranow to

608
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: expert who also has one of the greatest names I've

609
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: come across in a while.

610
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 5: Are you ready? Yeah? His name is doctor Love.

611
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 4: I'm sorry wait wait wait wait wait wait his name

612
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 4: is doctor Love.

613
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 5: His name is doctor Love.

614
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 3: I'm calling doctor Love.

615
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 4: Go to doctor Love, the Doctor of Love.

616
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 5: Do you have to pay for that?

617
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 4: Can we please get Gene Simmons on the pod to

618
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 4: talk about Gene Simmons would probably have some really interesting

619
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:52,239
Speaker 4: things to say about this.

620
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll bet he would.

621
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 8: I'm John Love. I'm the professor of synthetibology at the

622
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 8: Universe of Exeter. The main focus of my work is

623
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 8: reprogramming bacteria for the development of biofuels to replace the

624
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 8: fuels and the chemicals that come from petroleum.

625
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: Doctor Love's work studying biomass brought him into contact with

626
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: a pretty big fat burg in England. In fact, it

627
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: was about the size of three school buses. Local authorities

628
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: sent out an email to a bunch of folks asking

629
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: if anyone wanted to do some research on it.

630
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 8: Really, I thought, gosh, everybody will be wanting a piece

631
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 8: of this, but it turned out I was the only one.

632
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 4: I think I already see where this is going, which

633
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 4: is that one day, potentially my car could be running

634
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 4: on biofuel. It was made from presidential records that were

635
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 4: flushed down the White House toilet, right.

636
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 5: Sure, I guess my car as well.

637
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 11: And it was super super interesting because we needed to

638
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 11: get samples of the thing. And really, these chaps, they're

639
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 11: wearing their clothes, and then on top of that they've

640
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 11: got like a wetsuit or a biohazard suit essentially, and

641
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 11: on top of that they have like a spilunking suit

642
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 11: with they've got respirators and everything, and then they're because

643
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 11: it's almost like as unwieldy as a space, so they're

644
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 11: they're winged in this manhole. Then they have to use

645
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 11: these high powered lances to degrade the fats, so just

646
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 11: sort of and then get chunks from it.

647
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 5: Get some chunks from it too much?

648
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Matt, do you want to do you want

649
00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:29,959
Speaker 1: to know what a fatburg looks like?

650
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 4: It does a hard pass? My friend, I am I

651
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 4: am completely disinterested in the graphic details of what a

652
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 4: fatburg looks like. I mean, I can't stop you.

653
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 8: It's not flappy or floppy, but it is crystalline, so

654
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 8: it's friable. But it's a bit like have you ever

655
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 8: touched talcum powder?

656
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 7: Rock?

657
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 4: No, get out of here, come on.

658
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 5: And then, Matt, there's this smell.

659
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 9: It smells awful.

660
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 4: Are we are what are you read the jerky boys here?

661
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 4: What are we doing with the smell of the fat burg?

662
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: Okay, well we can tie it back to the documents.

663
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: Here's Sean bringing in it all full circle with doctor Love.

664
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 2: One material that we're interested in is just paper, like

665
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 2: everyday stationary, particularly if it's fancier stationary that you might

666
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 2: find and say like an official government office.

667
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 8: Yeah, are you thinking about Donald trumps stuff and his papers?

668
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 10: Down?

669
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 9: The toilet.

670
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 4: That he's a quick one, Doctor Love. That's good.

671
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: So now that we know a little bit more about

672
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: fat burgs, and now that doctor Love knows about why

673
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: we're asking, let's figure out whether or not papers would

674
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: disintegrate in this hypothetical document flesh fat burg.

675
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 8: Well, if it were covered in fat, it wouldn't necessarily

676
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,479
Speaker 8: degreat because now it's an aerobic for a star, so

677
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 8: there's no oxygen. The paper is made of sell of

678
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 8: those which by its nature is actually quite difficult to

679
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 8: digest anyway. This is why it takes a whole season

680
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 8: for leaves, for example, to just form mulch. So in

681
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 8: these particular conditions, it probably could happen that you might

682
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 8: find the paper.

683
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 4: That is remarkable. That would mean then that if presidential

684
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 4: records were flushed down the toilet and formed the fat bird,

685
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 4: they would remain intact sufficient that they would still have

686
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 4: their documentary value. Right like you could you could you

687
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 4: could remove it from the fat burg and read it

688
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:36,840
Speaker 4: is what it sounds like?

689
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 1: The answer is not, well, yes to an extent, because

690
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: doctor Love also describes, like what would happen if when

691
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: you pulled it out, what it would look like.

692
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 8: If you're looking for a legible piece of paper. That

693
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:54,280
Speaker 8: might be harder because I don't know what would happen

694
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 8: to the end. For example, I know that, for instance,

695
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 8: this is my calendar and it's from a jet a

696
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 8: jet printer, and if I get this wet, it just

697
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 8: all smears and doesn't really work out very well. So

698
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 8: that's part of the problem. So you might find, you know,

699
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 8: a nice piece of paper with officers of the President of

700
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 8: the United States written on it, for example, but just

701
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 8: a blur or smear. So I don't know if you'd

702
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 8: be able to find a document that would be legible,

703
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 8: but maybe you have.

704
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 11: It's almost like we're getting into to the X files

705
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:29,439
Speaker 11: at this point.

706
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:34,280
Speaker 4: Please tell me. We ask him about permanent marker, because

707
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 4: it looks like, I mean, the picture the Haberman pictures

708
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:39,720
Speaker 4: are paper with permanent marker.

709
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: Well, he doesn't address specifically what would happen if it was,

710
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: you know, if the papers were written in permanent marker,

711
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:48,839
Speaker 1: but he does sort of address it a bit.

712
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 8: You've got this piece of paper that would be completely

713
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 8: impregnated with fat, and I don't know if you've ever

714
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 8: dropped olive oil and a piece of paper or just

715
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 8: smeared it in butter, it will become translucent, So you

716
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 8: might not get the crest or the seal or whatever

717
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 8: is you're looking for, and you probably will not get

718
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:12,399
Speaker 8: the type, but you might though it'd be worth giving

719
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 8: out a try.

720
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 4: Oh well, yeah, oh yeah, we're totally doing that. The

721
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 4: question would be whether it's reasonably likely that you could

722
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 4: recover any readable material is a result of trying to

723
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 4: retrieve any paper from the fat burgs. And it sounds

724
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,319
Speaker 4: from doctor Love like that's probably not likely to be

725
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:32,800
Speaker 4: the case.

726
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 5: Let's just state the obvious.

727
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 1: Doctor Love knows, his knows, his fat bergs knows what

728
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: would happen if if some papers were lodged inside a

729
00:36:43,239 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 1: fat burg, and if there was any chance of retrieving it.

730
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 4: Okay, so Heather learned there were a fair number of

731
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 4: backups near the White House in the Trump years, and

732
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 4: even some sinkholes it could be caused by jammed up pikes.

733
00:36:56,440 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 4: Sean learned that maybe, just maybe, if presidential paper made

734
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 4: their way into a fatburg in the DC sewers, maybe

735
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 4: something might have survived in it. If you're a law

736
00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:10,720
Speaker 4: enforcement officer interested in making sure presidential records aren't being

737
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,840
Speaker 4: wrongly disposed, it may be worth asking a few follow

738
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:18,960
Speaker 4: up questions, and that brings us back to our original question,

739
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 4: the one we sued over. We wanted to know if

740
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:25,920
Speaker 4: the FBI and DOJ had ever investigated whether presidential records

741
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 4: had been sent down the toilet, and if so, what

742
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:33,839
Speaker 4: they learned. Remember, the FBI said they couldn't confirm or

743
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 4: deny the presence of an investigation the old Glomar response.

744
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:42,760
Speaker 4: It took literal years, but finally in February twenty twenty five,

745
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 4: a judge responded, Jason obviously couldn't contain himself and called

746
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 4: me to talk about it.

747
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 5: Incredible opinion. It's awesome.

748
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 3: This is the kind of stuff that we need to

749
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 3: get from judges all the time.

750
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 4: If you want to know whether the FBI ever investigated

751
00:37:57,160 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 4: the flushing of presidential records down a White House toilet,

752
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 4: we're going to know the answer to that question, probably

753
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:06,400
Speaker 4: pretty soon. So what the Court is saying is that

754
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 4: the FBI can't withhold records based on interference with an

755
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 4: ongoing investigation unless there really could be a prosecution at

756
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 4: the end of that And because the Supreme Court ruled

757
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 4: that acts undertaken by a president while in office in

758
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:25,839
Speaker 4: connection with their broadly defined presidential duties, are immune from prosecution.

759
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 4: The FBI can't show that this is something that would

760
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 4: ever be prosecuted.

761
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: Let me just also add one thing just to I

762
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,280
Speaker 1: kind of bring it into the now. Effectively, these criminal

763
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 1: investigations against Trump, and but now that Trump is president

764
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: this year there is an investigation into the investigation by

765
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 1: Congress over what they say was a politically motivated investigation.

766
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 1: So to me, there's so much more of a public

767
00:38:56,280 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: interest in these documents because now the investigators are being investigated.

768
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 4: The point is, now that's an open question, and I

769
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 4: think anytime you get into like a public interest analysis,

770
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 4: it's to determine whether the agency is doing its job

771
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,720
Speaker 4: properly or not. And so when you have all these people,

772
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 4: including the president, saying that these agencies have been engaged

773
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 4: in illegal weaponization on politicization, well you would think then

774
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 4: that they would have investigated him for the toilet records, right,

775
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 4: And if they didn't, this would actually tell you quite

776
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 4: a bit about that question.

777
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:32,280
Speaker 9: And how did they go about.

778
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 4: That investigation, Like did they do it fairly and objectively

779
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 4: or was it a bogus investigation? Well, how do you

780
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 4: tell that, Well, let's look at what they actually did. Right, So,

781
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:42,919
Speaker 4: like we've seen this in some other cases as well,

782
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 4: we're going to see more and more traction on that argument.

783
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,399
Speaker 4: I think it's like, Okay, you're saying that the thing

784
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:48,879
Speaker 4: is weaponized and politicized.

785
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:49,919
Speaker 5: So now things that.

786
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 4: Maybe in the past you wouldn't be able to get

787
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:53,399
Speaker 4: released because it was just sort of like way too

788
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 4: speculative or there really wasn't that much public interest in it, Well,

789
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 4: now there's a significant public interest in it, right.

790
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 3: That's you.

791
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: That's your professional opinion. My professional opinion is, let's go.

792
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: This is to me one example of us shipping away

793
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,400
Speaker 1: at that culture of secrecy and the judge and the

794
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: judge agreed.

795
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 5: Yeah.

796
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 4: So it's good to see an instance like this where

797
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 4: the court is really like doing the proper independent review

798
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:27,320
Speaker 4: and concluding that there's no basis to deny from the public.

799
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 9: Knowing even whether there had been any.

800
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 4: Investigation into the flushing of documents down the White House toilet,

801
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:33,879
Speaker 4: which is as.

802
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 5: Far as we've gotten so far.

803
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 4: Now they're going to go they're going to see if

804
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 4: there are any records, so we will at least know

805
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 4: and if there aren't any, then that's the.

806
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 9: End of the line on that.

807
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 4: And if there are, then you know that they can

808
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:49,560
Speaker 4: attempt to serve some exceptions and they could potentially assert

809
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 4: Trump's privacyal though I would take that case.

810
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:53,959
Speaker 9: All day long.

811
00:40:55,520 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: So at this point, then what will the FBI I

812
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: be forced to do?

813
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 4: The parties are directed to submit jointly to status report

814
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 4: proposing a schedule to govern future proceedings to conclude this

815
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:12,359
Speaker 4: case expeditiously. So they're at a point where they now

816
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 4: need to do what they should have done all along,

817
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 4: which is gather the records, conduct a reasonable search, review

818
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 4: the records, produce everything that's not exempt, and they can

819
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 4: withhold whatever they believe is exempt and think they can

820
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 4: prove his exempt. You know, she's being clear she wants

821
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:28,840
Speaker 4: us to be done expeditiously, so we can put the

822
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 4: pedal to the metal on like, hey, FBI, you need

823
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 4: to process this quickly.

824
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:37,280
Speaker 1: Right on victory victory and the am I love it, well, Matt,

825
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: that is our journey, our investigation into not just the

826
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:45,879
Speaker 1: destruction of presidential records. But you know what happens when

827
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 1: these records go down the toilet in the White House.

828
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 1: I get all circumstantial, you know, plausible.

829
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 4: I think those are very important findings and I think

830
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 4: is really important to democracy. I mean, there's an obligation

831
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:01,479
Speaker 4: to retain presidential records. So I think what I would

832
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 4: want to convey to people is that you and I

833
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 4: take the role of documents and transparency in our democracy

834
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:12,240
Speaker 4: so seriously that we were willing to exhaust the possibility

835
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 4: that somebody's got to go spelunking in a fatberg to

836
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 4: try to extract presidential records so that the public could

837
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 4: have access to them. And I think that is what

838
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 4: will one day save our failing devirus.

839
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: I'm applauding a Matt Well said, thank you, said I

840
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: would like you to close out by saying, you know,

841
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 1: you rest your case.

842
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 4: It was that your honor. I rest my case in

843
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 4: the People Versus White House toilet from Bloomberg and No Smiling,

844
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,280
Speaker 4: This is disclosure. The show is hosted by Matt Topik

845
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:52,239
Speaker 4: and me Jason Leopold. It's produced by Heather Schroering and

846
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 4: Sean Cannon for No Smiling. Our editor for Bloomberg is

847
00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 4: Jeff Grocott. Our executive producers for Bloomberg our Sage Bauman

848
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,759
Speaker 4: and me Jason Leopold, and our executive producers for No

849
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 4: Smiling are Sean Cannon, Heather Schrowing and Matt Topic. The

850
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 4: disclosure theme song is by Nick with additional music by

851
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:16,399
Speaker 4: Nick An Epidemic sound sound design and mixing is by

852
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 4: Sean Cannon. Special thanks to Mark, David Corley, John Alexander Leeper,

853
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:26,280
Speaker 4: and Jake Skinner. For more transparency news and important document dumps,

854
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 4: you can subscribe to my Weeklyfoya Files newsletter at Bloomberg

855
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Speaker 4: dot com slash Foya Files.

856
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:38,160
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857
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860
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Speaker 1: around the world.

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