“Here are the papers…this is secret information,” Trump can be heard saying in a recording of a 2021 meeting held at his Bedminster, New Jersey, compound, audio of which was obtained by CNN on Monday.
CNN first reported the existence of such a recording in May, just days before Trump was indicted by the Justice Department’s indictment against Trump on charges related to their investigation into his hoarding of classified documents after the presidency. Earlier this month, Trump was arrested and pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges, including Espionage Act violations, conspiracy to obstruct justice, bribery cover-up of a record or document and the concealment of a document from a federal investigation.
In its indictment, the department alleges the tape is evidence that Trump not only kept documents containing highly classified national security information, but showed them to people not authorized to view them. The full audio of the conversation was previously unavailable to the public.
In the recording, Trump can be heard shuffling papers and discussing an “example” of documents given to him by General Mark Milley to attack Iran.
“Let me see this, I’ll show you an example,” Trump says, the sound of paper shuffling can be heard in the background. “They introduced me to this – it’s unofficial,” he adds. And, because apparently spilling national security secrets leaves one unbearably parched, the former president can later be heard asking for a round of Coke for himself and his audience.
As someone sorts through papers, Trump jokes with others in the room about Hillary Clinton printing copies of classified documents.
“Hillary was printing this all the time, you know. His private emails,” one person can be heard saying.
“No, she would send it to Anthony Weiner,” Trump replies.
The tape also contains an admission that he had not taken steps to declassify the document before leaving office.
“It’s like, highly confidential,” Trump told those in attendance, “See as president, I could have declassified it…Now I can’t, you know, but it’s still a secret.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he secretly declassified documents he took from the White House, even going so far as to say he had the power to do so telepathically. But despite the former president’s dubious claim to a sixth sense, his story regarding the documents has continually changed.
Last week, in a interview with Fox News, Trump insisted on harboring Bret Baier that it was all just a big mess, literally. The former president told the Fox host that all of those classified documents just ended up in his boxes of golf shirts during the rush to leave the White House. “Like every other president, I take things away,” Trump said. “In my case, I got it out pretty quickly. People packed it up and left. I had clothes in there, I had all kinds of personal items in there. Many, many things.
When Baier questioned him about the contents of the recording, Trump denied that such a document even existed. “Bret, there was no document,” Trump said. “It was a huge amount of papers and everything, talking about Iran and stuff. And it may or may not have been delayed. It wasn’t a paper. I didn’t have any papers to properly There was nothing to declassify, it was newspaper articles, magazine articles and articles.
The former president’s on-air statements lend credence to investigators’ concerns that Trump is publicly discussing evidence related to the case. Last week, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a motion to restrict Trump’s access to evidence disclosed to his attorneys during the discovery.
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