WEBVTT - Our Deep Dive for White House Records Starts in the Toilet 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:02.600 Hey, Matt, Hey, Jason, do you remember what we were 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:06.200 doing back in the summer of twenty twenty two. It 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:09.360 had to do with Donald Trump and some pretty unusual 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:13.280 allegations of document removal at the White House. Here, I'll 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:14.080 give you a hint. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.799 His staff used to periodically find wands of printed paper 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:22.880 clogging the White House toilets. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:23.600 Hit it. 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.560 I'm investigative journalist Jason Leopold. I spend most of my 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:29.360 days getting documents from the government. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.600 I'm attorney Matt Tapic, and I fight them in court 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:33.199 to open their files when they don't want to. 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:35.720 From Bloomberg and no smiling. 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:40.400 This is Disclosure, a podcast about buying loose government secrets, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.960 the Freedom of Information Act, and the unexpected places that 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:52.159 takes us. The toilets. Matt, I can't believe we're still 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:53.520 talking about the toilets. 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.959 Well, we never stopped talking about somebody allegedly flushing documents 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.400 down the toilet during Donald Trump's first term. Trump is 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:02.680 back in office. The toilets are more important than ever. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.520 And God, Matt, what a journey, What a perfect records journey. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.680 It started with the Zoom call back in August twenty 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:11.160 twenty two. 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.640 Hang on I'm just searching YouTube. 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:15.480 For toilet noises. 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.760 Our producers Sean and Heather were there for toilet noises. 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.160 Okay, we should estimate how many presidents records have fit 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:24.200 inside the toilet. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.760 We should, Matt, I mean, this is a big deal. 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:31.440 Presidents are supposed to save everything, yes, by law, and 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:33.760 if they're going down the toilet, then they're not going 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:35.319 to the National Archives like. 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.480 They're supposed to exactly. This news cycle has moved so quickly, 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.560 and it wasn't just about the toilets. 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.360 Some Trump officials put select documents in so called burn bags, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:47.960 where they were destroyed rather than preserved. 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.880 Former President Trump improperly took classified and even top secret 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.320 documents to his Mara Algo residents in Florida. 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.600 Again, these are allegations. Great, and then what happens. 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.360 Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter, tweets a picture 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.360 of a toilet that she got from a Trump White 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:09.600 House source. We now have pictures of Trump's toilet with 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:11.320 the flushed documents. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.359 I urge people to zoom in. You can see it's 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:13.840 a sharpie. 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:15.120 You can see it's his handwriting. 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.040 Describe that photo, Matt, Well, it's a toilet and I'm 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.960 looking down into the bowl and down at the bottom 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.399 is some ripped up pieces of paper with some all 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:27.040 camps sharpie. 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:27.320 Writing on it. 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.200 According to a source, this is a White House toilet. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.240 But here's the thing that's like bizarre to me, Like, 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.040 let's just think about this photo. Right in Siri, somebody 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.959 probably threw many pieces of paper in the toilet bowl, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.560 flushed it, and not everything went through right. They didn't 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:45.799 just throw it in the toilet bowl and then walk away. 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:47.960 They absolutely flushed it. 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:50.880 If you're one of these people who's taping back together 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:55.040 the ripped up things and you come across the presidential 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.560 record lying in the toilet, and you have a duty 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.000 to preserve it, I guess you don't put antendident, right, 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.200 So the picture is the preservation of the record that like, 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.360 that picture should end up in the National Archives. 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.720 Oh, that will end up in the National Archives. Absolutely, 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.560 it's a presidential record. It may in the toilet. 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:14.240 I mean it's got his handwriting on it. 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.480 That absolutely ends up and the presidential ogurn. 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.520 So now all this stuff Trump said before about toilet 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.960 capacity being too small. 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.720 People are flushing toilets ten times, fifteen times, so EPA 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.959 is looking at that very strongly, at my suggestion. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.519 Seeks showers and toilets, toilets, toilets. 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.440 We won't talk about toilets, toilets, toilets. 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:38.800 And what goes with a sink of a shower. 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:42.560 It all makes just perfect sense. 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.920 But Matt, what happened next hours after that toilet picture 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.200 emerged more big news drop. 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.560 FBI has executed an unprecedented search warrant at President Donald 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:54.880 Trump's mar A Lago estate. 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.320 We know the Justice Department has an active investigation into 0:03:58.320 --> 0:03:59.280 the former president. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.800 The age of FBI agents on mar Alago supposedly related 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:05.560 to all the records that were taken. 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.280 So you got to wonder how many public records have 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.400 gone down the toilets, what happened to them? 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:11.480 Where did they go? 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.120 Did anyone go looking exactly? 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.479 I was like light bulb, got a FOI of that. 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:24.280 So I blanketed all these agencies, Apartment, Homeland Security, Secret Service, FBI, CIA, 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.720 and SA POJ so basically everybody. 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:29.480 But what kind of records did you ask for? 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:35.360 Records about either flushing certain documents down the toilet or 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:37.960 just records of that were brought to mar A Lago 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.279 and sort of looking for any kind of communications or discussions, 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:43.599 budget records, how many people that they get there to 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.159 try to piece things back together. So it was a 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.800 very broad request to all these different agencies, and I 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:54.039 got a response from the FBI, and FBI responded with 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.920 what's known as a glomar. They said that they can 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.120 either confirm nor deny you know that these records exist, yes, 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:05.000 because to do so would be tantamount to acknowledging the 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.800 existence or non existence of an investigation. So that was 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.919 like the first clue that the FBI was investigating this. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:14.719 I reached out to Matt and I said, Hey, I 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:18.520 want to file some lawsuits. Matt kindly agreed to that, 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.279 and we suit all of the agencies that I followed 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.880 requests with five separate lawsuits for all of these records 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.279 related to bringing documents tomorrow lago. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.120 So these are for records were moved from the White 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.279 House that would cover allegations of documents flushed, hauled out 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.640 in bags or getting taken to mar a lago. Right, 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.000 So when we file a suit in the complaint, if 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.840 it gets linked somewhere or it's like embedded in an 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.000 opening paragraph, that's the only thing you're going to see, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.279 so we try to make that kind of plungey. So 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.760 this one says, playing if Jason Leopold brings his Freedom 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.480 of Information Act suit to force defendants Federal Bureau of 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.960 Investigation and he was proudor of Justice to produce documents 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:02.520 about any presidential records luting classified records, it were removed 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.080 from the White House to borrow lago or flush down 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.640 White House toilets, potentially in violation of federal law. 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.720 So we file the lawsuits and then we wait and 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:13.400 we wait. 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:15.920 But says you couldn't help yourself. I know you didn't 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:16.400 stop there. 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:17.800 Yeah. 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.360 I had this amazing source. She worked in the government, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:22.000 and she. 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:27.240 Told me that when the news was surfacing about destroying 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.000 records and flushing down the toilet, she gave me this 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.200 great insight, and she told me to hit up GSA, 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:38.800 the General Service Administration, and the National Park Service because 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:43.600 the toilet in the Oval office is sort of overseen 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.640 by the White House Usher's office. If that guests clog 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:49.680 or they need to have someone come out and repair it, 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:51.800 that comes from like usually GSA. 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:54.200 So anyway, I'm just looking at it now. 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.600 Was a perfect request met all records of clumbing calls 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.200 for former President Trump's residents bathroom toilet and the toilet 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.080 next to the Oval Office, and notes and reports related 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.960 to those health all records of plumbing repairs and fixture 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:11.360 replacement invoices, contracts, photographs. Because if you're sticking paper in 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.239 the toilet, I mean you would think. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:16.680 I would get clogged. I filed this request. 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:18.800 What I thought was like, oh, this is such a 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.640 good request, they must have records. I ended up getting 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.480 this response from GSA, and it says, mister Leopold, thank 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:26.240 you for taking the time to speak for me today. 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.800 For issues like a clogged toilet in the Oval Office, 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.360 it is the Usher's Office, which is part of the 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.080 Executive Office of the President, which would be the ones 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.600 to handle that type of issue. GSA would potentially have 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.520 records related to the larger repairs of the toilet in 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:43.880 the White House, but the Usher's Office is the one 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.720 that conducts the maintenance in the White House residents and 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.840 therefore would not have records related to any restrooms in 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:50.600 that part of the building. 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:52.600 So I didn't get any records. 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:54.680 But I had no idea about this. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.480 I feel like I got this amazing education on the 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.080 White House toilet, which I think is a really important 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:01.760 thing to have. 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:05.120 Right now, you're saying, if it just needs to be plunged, 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.880 then the usher's office deals with it. It's a presidential 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:13.680 record exactly, So that's a dead end. 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.200 You can't foil those yet. The Presidential Records Act, that's 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.880 the law that governs presidential records which are outside SCOPEFOYA 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:26.000 makes you wait five years before anything is available, And personally, 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.880 I think this is ridiculous. The president has an incredible. 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:30.200 Amount of power. 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.000 We should be allowed to monitor the president and hold 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.679 the president accountable just as much or even much more 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:41.439 than federal agencies. And then if it's bigger, if it's 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:43.400 big enough, if it's like this is so bad it's 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:45.600 in the pipes, they got to come out and roday. 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:47.480 I then it's a GSA. 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:49.200 So if it didn't flush enough to make. 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.760 Make a GSAH, they had no records, man, So that's 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.680 it right, Hold on a second, we might be on 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.280 our own figure this out. So I just went down 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.920 some rabbit holes with our producers, Heather and Sean. Not 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.560 everything you flush causes trouble immediately, So we wondered if 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:09.439 you flush a lot of papers and they get past 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.200 the White House itself. Could there be some sort of sign. 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:18.400 Honestly, the reality of there being actual sewage problems because 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.360 of this is it could check out because there were 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:25.600 these big sinkholes both at the White House and on 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:30.040 mar A Lago's lawn, and the theory was that it 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:31.560 really to sewage lines. 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.480 Oh my god, wait, is there like stories about this. 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.840 I'm reading a Forbes article in twenty eighteen that talks 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.920 about these sinkholes, the sinkhole in the White House lawn, 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.840 and it says, almost precisely a year ago, a massive 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.520 sinkhole appeared in the front of the Marra A Lago resort. 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.840 Hold On, hold on, hold on? Is this a pattern? 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:58.040 Who knowse we got to look into this, all right, 0:09:58.120 --> 0:09:59.800 So we went on a little bit of a journey 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.240 here trying to get more details about whether it was 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.520 even possible for something like flushing papers to cause a sinkhole. 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.080 And Sean might be on a watch list now thanks 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.560 to a post he made in the Washington DC subreddit. 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.640 I just got a terrifying comment on Reddit. 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.120 A lot of people in this sub or government workers 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.480 with security clearances, and this very odd and very specific 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.000 question about the White House sewage system will set off 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:27.840 people's suspicious radar. 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:29.640 Jun's day off Reddit. 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.440 I'm deleting it right now. I'm hitting delete. I don't 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:34.680 want the FBI showing up at my door. Are you 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:35.680 the toilet bomber? 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:36.680 Did you delete it? 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:38.599 Because now I think it's even more suspicious. 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:41.800 I thought that the moment after I hit delete. 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:47.520 Too, okay, But then Matt, we finally finally hit pay dirt. 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:48.440 Ye. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.400 Imagine like going going to Harvard or Stanford and getting 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:54.640 you know, this law degree and becoming a page and 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:56.199 going to the White House and somebody. 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:56.920 Handing you a plunger. 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:58.400 This is Patrick Arner. 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.760 I mean, it's my living so I mean I'm out 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:01.680 shying away from it. 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.559 But come on, He's what you might call a celebrity 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.320 presidential plumbing expert. He became a media darling during the 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.240 pandemic and even talk to other media outlets about, well, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.600 this subject, exactly what would happen if someone at the 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:17.640 White House flushed documents down the toilet? 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:19.760 First, we wanted to. 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.040 Know what happens when you flush paper down the toilet. 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:23.600 In general, it's. 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.760 Going to depend on what kind of paper we're talking about. 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.920 I mean, you can't flush down baby wipes down a 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.760 toilet without it becoming a major issue. If you start 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:36.360 using you know, printer, paper, card stuck anything like that, 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.480 you know you're going to have pretty severe issues pretty soon. 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:41.280 It's going to be pretty apparent pretty quickly. 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.760 Well, I guess the question remains, will the papers go 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.760 down the toilet? In a normal situation, It'll. 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.720 Go down the toilet more than likely, but it probably 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.120 won't make it past the trap of the toilet. 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:55.800 And if you look on the side of a toilet 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:56.720 you kind of see like an. 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.839 S shape, that's your trap. But especially if you're looking 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:02.120 at I guess something that's called a pressure assistant toilet, 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.360 which you would find in a lot of commercial applications, you. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.760 Know, very nice houses. Those will absolutely do it. 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.160 In fact, you go to Home People or Low's tomorrow, 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.360 you'll see toilet that are advertise that you can flush 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:14.360 pulballs down. 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.040 Impressive. God bless America. 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.600 I love this guy Patrick because he's so serious about 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.040 the work that he does. Let's see what he has 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.280 to say about what might happen if the Oval office 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.960 toilets are able to flesh a pool ball and the 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.480 papers make it down into the pipes of the White House. 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.319 It depends on what type of piping we're gonna have 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.280 on the sewer. Originally there was probably piping that was 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.760 made out of logs, literally logs. Odds are right now 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.080 it's PBC, which is standard. It's where you have what 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:46.360 I have, what most people have. 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:47.199 Odds are. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.160 What's happening is it's getting flushed down and it would 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.160 make it a ways down the line until it either 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:55.760 you know, comes to a belly in the line where 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:58.760 the line actually dips and SAgs a little bit, or 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:00.600 maybe it possibly makes a bend. 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:03.280 In essence, what will end up happening is it'll almost 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:04.400 form like a small net. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.679 It only needs to catch a small a small part 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.000 of a bend or you know, a fitting that's jutting 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.599 out slightly, and then it now creates a net and 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:18.680 it just starts grabbing waste, foreign objects like paper, feminine projects, 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:19.520 anything like that. 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.320 Incredible, okay, And you would think, first of all, it's 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.480 the president, he has a super secret toilet. No, this 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.920 underscore is that the president is just like every other person. 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.960 It's you know, it's it's just a regular toilet. PVC piping, 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.760 I'm one of you. I mean, basically, what Patrick is 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.360 saying is that if you flush these foreign objects down 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:43.560 the toilet, it's it's sort of going to create a 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:45.600 traffic jam. Right, What could that lead to? 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.640 If there is that belly, if there is a bend, 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.840 if there's a weak spot in line, you actually have 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:56.719 a strong potential of too much pressure building up and 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.880 forcing a separation and the line. If a line is weak, 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.640 if it's cast iron piping, which is possible, it could. 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:05.920 Be deteriorating already. 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.440 So you start having all these objects, you know, start 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.160 piling up, piling up, and all this pressure starts backing up. 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.559 Eventually something's gonna give you did see, They're going to 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:16.280 back up the way it came, or it's going to 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:17.079 burst the pipe. 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:18.440 Oh wow, I know. 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.280 Right, Okay, So just to recap, here's where we are 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.280 with the baber's in the toilet. Let's say they've cleared 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.640 the toilet, they've gone through, they've cleared the white house. 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:31.240 Now they're out of the yard, and they hit a 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.760 bend in the pipes. There's this big backup and now 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:39.120 the pipe's ruptured, right, yes, yes, exactly. 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:40.960 And then you have two things that'll happen. 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.000 Either sewage can start to seep up out of the 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.080 ground depending on how deep the pipe is, or it 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.320 can start settling underneath the pipe and starting to spread 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.120 out and start actually eroding the soil and the dirt 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:55.560 and all the compaction. 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.400 That you have in that area. This isn't just a theory. 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.320 This is actually a pretty prevalent issue something at insurance 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.920 companies look for. In fact, there's been major issues in Chicago, 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:10.800 major issues in San Francisco where sewage lines. First, the 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.120 compaction's not properly done if maybe it wasn't a grade, 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.760 and that soil in that dirt starts to erode, and 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.280 then sinkholes can the potentially start to fill. 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.360 Matt sinkholes, sink holes, sinkholes. 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.800 In May of twenty eighteen, there was a sinkhole on 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.720 the White House lawn and it was spreading and. 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:30.520 There's more of that. 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:33.680 We gave Patrick a photo of the White House sinkhole 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:35.480 to get his take on it. 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.600 I can't definitively say and I gotta say that, but 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.920 if you look at it, it's not just forming, you know. 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:43.840 A perfect oval or a perfect circle. 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.920 It almost looks linear where it's starting to slope downwards. 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.720 And when you have sewage piping, you have something called grade. 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:53.960 You have to have a certain amount of grade when 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.640 it comes to sewer pipes because it's all gravity fed. 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.920 The waste must slowly roll downhill. That looks like a 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.640 going linear and it looks like it's going downhill towards 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.760 a road which would probably tie into a city sewer 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:08.800 or potentially tie into a city sewer. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:11.600 Okay, so, Matt, so this is my theory. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.479 This is you know, I see the reports about sinkholes 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.520 over the years, including sinkhole at Mora Lago, and you 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.640 know pictures of toilet with papers with Trump's handwriting on it. 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.000 I'm not stating definitively here that papers going down the 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.080 toilet created that sinkhole in twenty eighteen, but that sinkhole 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.640 was a big deal in twenty eighteen. And now Patrick 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.600 tells us that one way in which that can happen 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.800 is by flushing papers down the toilet. Come on, man, 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.800 what do you think about that? That's that's serious? Yeah, 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:47.600 I mean we got to get Patrick. We we neat 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:51.160 Patrick as an expert witness to testify in our Foya 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.080 case to get people down there. 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.479 There's no foil. I mean, there isn't. This is the problem. 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.400 The problem is there isn't a foyer case. At the 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.440 end of the day, the problem is you, the American public, 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:05.600 according to our laws, don't have a right to know 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.280 whether the president flushed records down the toilet. You don't 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.439 get to know that. And you also don't get to 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.600 know whether, if that happened, he caused a sinkhole. Therein 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.120 lies the problem. Jason Toy is great on a lot 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.720 of things, but when it comes to presidential records, there's 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:20.800 a gaping hole. 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:24.160 Well okay, fair, fair, But what do you think about 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.000 the fact that he's saying that you know that this 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.679 could cause a sinkhole, and that there actually was a 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:32.440 sinkhole on the White House long. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.800 I mean, we have some solid, circumstantial evidence that there 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:41.240 was regular flushing of papers down the toilet that led 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:42.160 to a sinkhole. 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.879 I just want to note this was in twenty eighteen, right, Yeah, 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:49.200 but there was also another sinkhole in twenty nineteen, another 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.320 one in twenty nineteen, there was another one, and in 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:56.600 addition to that, there was also a sinkhole at Mara 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:02.000 a Lago in twenty seventy. Oh well, so, Matt, we've 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:03.680 made it all the way to the White House lawn 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.920 and we think that document flushing could have caused the sinkhole. 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.000 But remember there was another part of this document journey. 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:12.680 There's a chance that documents made it through the White 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:14.520 House pipes and out. 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.159 Into DC's being a smull sewer. 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.560 System, and we're going to get into that on the 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:25.639 other side of the break, Heather, I want to go 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:26.480 on a sewer tour. 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:28.960 You really want to go on a sewer tour. So 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:34.760 with all this talk of sinkholes and allegedly flushing stuff 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.639 down the White House toilet, I thought it might be 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.520 interesting to see if there had ever been any major 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.080 obstructions in the sewer near the White House. So I 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:48.640 made a request with DC Water for reports and investigative 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:52.639 records regarding quote, large obstructions caused by a buildup of 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:57.160 non biodegradable solids in the DC sewers that DC Water 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:02.280 dealt with from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty three. That 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.240 time frame captured the entire Trip administration and the Biden administration, 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:08.640 or at least what we had had of it so far, 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:10.920 and it took a few months, but finally I got 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.320 more than nine hundred pages of material in three different 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:15.800 data sets, which was a lot. 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:16.040 Wow. 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:22.000 So to see what happened where I built something? Can 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:23.640 I get a drum roll? 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.439 Double bass, drum roll? Whoa what? So you made this? 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:32.800 I made this? 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:34.639 Okay, you got skills. 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:35.120 Wow? 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.560 I love maps. Does someone want to describe what they're seeing? 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:43.840 Well, yeah, this is Dcwater Reports twenty sixteen to twenty 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.960 twenty three, and there's a green DAT for the White House, 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:49.919 so it looks like it's about I don't know, a 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.440 couple square miles worth. And then there's a bunch of 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.040