The audio, from an interview Trump gave in July 2021 at his Bedminster, New Jersey, residence to people working on the memoirs of his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is pivotal evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment. due to the former president’s mismanagement with classified information. The recording was first made public Monday on CNN television’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”
The special counsel’s indictment alleges that those who attended the meeting with Trump — a writer, an editor and two other members of Trump’s team — were shown classified information about a Pentagon plan to attack an unspecified foreign country.
“These are the papers,” Trump said in a moment that seems to indicate that he had a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran in his hands. “This was done by the military, they gave it to me.”
Trump’s reference to something he says is “highly confidential” and the apparent action of showing documents to someone else at the meeting could undermine claims he later made in an interview on Fox News Channel in which he said he had no no documents with him.
“There was no document. There was an enormous amount of papers, and everything else talking about Iran and other things,” Trump said on Fox. “I didn’t have a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. They were stories were from newspapers, magazines and articles.
Earlier this month, Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents he kept at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida.
A Trump campaign spokesman said the audio recording “provides context that shows, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
FUENTE: Associated Press
