A Plumber Has a Simple Message for Donald Trump About Flushing Sensitive Documents Down the Toilet

[Javaman]

(TLTR: if it was White House paper stock, it can be retrieved and read)


https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/02/donald-trump-flushing-documents-toilet-plumber-interview.html

According to some new reporting from Trumpworld uber-correspondent Maggie Haberman’s forthcoming book, Confidence Man, some staffers believed that while he was in office, President Donald Trump sometimes clogged a White House residence toilet by flushing documents down it. (Trump has publicly denied this.) Axios pointed out that this detail, if true, “adds a vivid new dimension to his lapses in preserving government documents.” Yes, sure. But we just wanted to know: Is this actually a good way to get rid of a sensitive document in a pinch? For an answer, we caught up with Patrick Garner of Cardinal Plumbing, Heating & Air in Northern Virginia (who last spoke to Slate about plumbing-via-Zoom at the height of lockdown). This interview has been condensed and edited.

Heather Schwedel: Did you hear about Trump’s reported method for getting rid of documents? What was your reaction?

Patrick Garner: I saw something like this on Reddit earlier in the day, but I didn’t really pay any attention to it. When you sent it to me, I looked at it. It’s pretty hilarious. Actually, my initial reaction was that that was something exactly like what a kid would do. If you want to hide the report card or hide a detention note, you would flush it down the toilet. It’s not only shortsighted, but it’s not going to work. It’s gonna be found out almost immediately.

What actually happens when papers get flushed down a toilet?

One of the things that any plumber will tell you is that you never flush baby wipes down a toilet, and you never flush down even a paper towel. So imagine printer paper, or even card stock, if it’s on a nice letterhead from the White House. Obviously, it’s not going to be able to be flushed down. Even though you might get it down past the hole of the toilet, it’s either gonna get clogged up inside the toilet or even worse, it might get pushed further down the line, which can cause issues not just in that bathroom, but really in the entire building.

What happens then?

So if it gets stuck in the toilet, and most people don’t really pay any attention to their toilet, but if you look on the side, you’ll see a shape that kind of looks like an S. That’s a trap in the toilet. So if it gets caught in the trap, there’s really not much you can do. You might be able to put an auger down and push it through, but that’s gonna involve taking the toilet off the ground, un-plumbing everything, and pushing it through. A lot of times that won’t work. So you’ll just have to replace the toilet, but that’s the best-case scenario, honestly. You run the risk of either pushing it further down the line or just getting even more lodged.

I’ve seen where somebody does something like this—as a matter of fact, it was literally a kid. He flushed down a whole bunch of test answers and report cards and stuff down his toilet. His parents tried to get it out with an auger themselves, and they pushed it so far that we actually had to come in there and use a jackhammer and open up their floors and cut out the pipe so we could get the items. Now that’s an extreme example, but it does happen.

more at link...

[PXR-5]

1. Proof that TFG is just a child.

[Hekate]

2. This is hilarious. What about the pipes? asks the journalist...

What would you expect the pipes to be like in a place like the White House?

Initially the pipes in the White House probably would’ve been wooden pipes that they would’ve made out of logs. Eventually they might have turned to Orangeburg, which are pipes that we used during World War II. It’s actually just tar paper. More than likely right now, what they have is PVC. PVC is the standard for waste lines. Odds are the pipes themselves are probably in good shape, especially if it’s being maintained well. With PVC, it’s really not gonna be any different than what you and I have in our homes once we get down to the actual plumbing of it. If they were cast-iron pipes, which is possible—in fact, most of the homes in our area do have cast-iron pipes. I’m just assuming that they don’t because they’re a major facility. Now if it was cast-iron, which is possible, cast-iron pipe will actually start to break up and scale up. And that’s when things are very easily caught. They basically act as barbs, and anything that tries to get by them gets snapped on these tiny barbs.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/02/donald-trump-flushing-documents-toilet-plumber-interview.html

[Jilly_in_VA]

3. Or to put it succinctly

"The stuff ain't written on toilet paper, so DON'T DO IT!"

[tanyev]

4. "something exactly like what a kid would do", an apt description of so many of Donny's actions.

With the majority of the Republican party loudly cheering him on. Remember when they called themselves the party of grown-ups?

[Meowmee]

5. So I am wondering if this is true that it will clog that badly and

If dump was regularly flushing papers down a toilet, was that toilet ever repaired for being clogged etc?

[localroger]

6. I think this is overstated

There are other ways to clear a paper jam from a pipe. Plumbers have tools that can grab clogs and pull them out as well as pushing them further into the pipe, and these can be introduced from vents as well as through the toilets if the clog has gone that far. It's not something you will want to try yourself but we had an employee at work who was flushing wet wipes, which eventually clogged all of our toilets with a jam down past where the pipe became common to nearly every drain in the building. They cleared it without tearing anything up.

[Chainfire]

7. I thought the plumber got it about right.

I spent a career in the business and was recognized as a master plumber in three states.

[localroger]

8. OK then, I defer to expertise. Pipes in the WH are probably pretty industrial-grade though

...that may be why our industrial building didn't need to be excavated to clear its paper jam.