Trump, after presidency, reportedly discusses possessing classified document in recording
CBC
U.S. Justice Department prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of former president Donald Trump from after he left office in which he talks about holding onto a classified Pentagon document related to a potential attack on Iran, according to media reports.
CNN, which first reported on the tape, said Trump suggested on the recording that he wanted to share information from the document with others but that he knew there were limitations about his ability to declassify records after he left office.
According to the CNN report, the July 2021 recording at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., was made during a gathering with aides to Trump and two people who were working on the autobiography of Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
The comments on the recording would seem to undercut the former president's repeated claims that he declassified the documents he took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, after leaving office. The recording could also be a key aid for prosecutors looking to prove Trump knew his ability to possess classified documents was limited.
It said Meadows's autobiography includes a description of what appears to be the same meeting.
The recording has been provided to special counsel Jack Smith, whose team of prosecutors has spent months investigating the potential mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and whether Trump or anyone else sought to criminally obstruct the probe.
The Washington Post, reporting late Wednesday, said two people familiar with the recorded conversation said Smith's prosecutors have asked witnesses about Trump's apparent awareness that the document he was discussing at Bedminster was something sensitive that he could not share or declassify after leaving office.
The criminal investigation began last year after the National Archives and Records Administration alerted the FBI to the presence of classified documents in 15 boxes of records sent back, belatedly, from Mar-a-Lago by Trump and his representatives.
Investigators initially issued a subpoena for remaining classified records, but after they received only about three dozen during a June 2022 visit to Mar-a-Lago, returned with a search warrant two months later and recovered about 100 more documents marked as classified, including in Trump's office there.
A lawyer for Meadows declined to comment Wednesday on the latest reports when reached by The Associated Press.
CNN said witnesses including Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been questioned about the episode. A spokesperson for Milley declined to comment on reports that he had been interviewed.
A spokesperson for the special counsel declined to comment.
A Trump spokesperson said in a statement that the investigation was "meritless" and amounted to "continued interference in the presidential election."
Smith, the special counsel, is also investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election — the subject of a similar, ongoing inquiry by prosecutors in Atlanta.
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