Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said there were few regulations while she worked there when she appeared on CNN’s “New Day” on Friday morning to discuss reports of Donald Trump destroying documents, including allegedly flushing some down the toilet.
Grisham alternated between calling the former president “paranoid” and “weird” in his habits when speaking with guests John Berman and Brianna Keilar.
“You know, I wasn’t surprised when I saw the report,” she told the CNN hosts.
“I think what’s important is this is another example of a White House and an administration that we had no rules, we followed no rules. Obviously, with this, I do think it should be looked into. But there’s going to be a lot that goes into it. They may have been marked top secret but had the president declassified them, who packed them, what was the intent there? Was everything really returned? I think the point is, I know people are talking about, you know, should he get in trouble legally for this?”
Asked, “Was it a nervous tic or because he wanted them out of circulation?”
She replied, “I don’t know the answer to that to be honest with you. I always thought it was a nervous tic. It was — he always tore everything up.”
She later added that “I saw him put some of the torn-up pieces inside his jacket pocket and I thought, huh, wonder why that’s going in his pocket rather than on the floor?
There weren’t alarm bells for me at the time because I was so used to seeing it. but I distinctly remember wondering why they went in his pocket? Maybe to be flushed in a toilet later.”
She went on to accuse Trump of being “paranoid.”
Then added, “You know, he didn’t trust anybody. He didn’t trust the people around him. He didn’t trust the people who were around him the most. There were just times when he would want to do things alone.”
“I saw him meet with Rudy Giuliani before in a room with literally nobody else in there — he was just a paranoid man,” she continued.
“And for me, he was always that way. So it didn’t set alarm bells off. Now that I have kind of stepped back and taken a break from this cult-like atmosphere, I’m seeing how crazy and strange it all was.”
