Federal prosecutors have obtained a recording of a meeting from the summer of 2021 in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges that he kept a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran, according to information published this Wednesday by CNN. The recording is incriminating evidence against Donald Trump, who has sometimes claimed that he had declassified all the documents that the Federal Investigation Agency (FBI) found in the search of his Mar-A-Lago mansion in Palm Beach (Florida).
According to information from CNN, which cites multiple sources familiar with the investigation, the recording indicates that Trump was aware that he withheld material classified as confidential after leaving the White House. Trump’s comments suggest that he would like to share the information, but at the same time admits that he is aware of the limitations of his post-presidency ability to declassify records, according to the information.
CNN specifies that its journalists have not heard the recording, but that multiple sources have told them its content. One of the sources noted that the relevant part on the classified document on the plan to attack Iran lasts about two minutes and another source said that the discussion is a small part of a much longer meeting.
Trump is under investigation for possible commission of various possible crimes related to the confidential classified documents he took to Mar-A-Lago. The recording may be key in the face of a possible imputation of the former president in the investigation led by special prosecutor Jack Smith, appointed by the Department of Justice.
Trump’s lawyers have recently requested a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding the Smith investigations, according to a letter released by the former president himself on his social network. In it, the lawyers claim that Trump is being treated unfairly by the Smith and his team. The special counsel is in charge not only of the investigation into the classified Mar-a-Lago documents, but also of his attempts to retain power after being defeated by a landslide by Joe Biden in the 2020 election. .
According to information from CNN this Wednesday, prosecutors have questioned various witnesses about the recording and the classified document referred to in it before the grand jury in charge of the case. One of those questioned has been General Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the highest-ranking national security positions of the Trump era.
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The audio-recorded meeting was held in July 2021 at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, with two people working on the autobiography of former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, as well as aides employed by the former president. , including communications specialist Margo Martin, according to the network, who recalls that Meadows’ book talks about what appears to be the same meeting.
According to the autobiography, in that meeting Trump “remembers a four-page report typed by Mark Milley himself. It contained the general’s own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency.”
The recording meeting occurred shortly after The New Yorker published a report alleging that, in the final days of the Trump presidency, Milley instructed military commanders to ensure that Trump did not issue illegal orders. Milley was also said to have repeatedly argued against attacking Iran and to have worried that Trump could set off an unwarranted large-scale conflict. The article claimed that Milley and other charges convinced Trump not to take such drastic action.
In the taped meeting, Trump tries to respond to the report with the document, which he says came from Milley. Trump told those in the room that if he could show it to people, it would undermine what Milley was saying, according to the sources, by showing that the Pentagon was more aggressive and warmongering towards Iran, even though the military actually has plans to contingency for many hypothetical situations that do not imply that you advocate carrying them out. One source says Trump is referring to the document as if it were in front of him, and some say the recording captures the sound of rustling paper, as if Trump was waving the document, though it’s unclear if this was the actual document on Iran.
movement of papers
The investigation into the classified papers is advancing and in recent weeks some other information about it has emerged. The Washington Post revealed that two Trump employees moved boxes of paper in Mar-a-Lago just a day before the Justice Department visited the former president’s residence with a request to collect classified documents.
According to the newspaper from the capital of the United States, the investigators see this movement as an indication that points to a possible crime of obstruction of justice. Investigators have evidence, according to the Washington Post, that the former president kept classified documents in a conspicuous place in his office and had shown them to other people. He would also have carried out “a ‘general rehearsal’ to transfer sensitive papers” together with his team before they were summoned in May 2022.
Trump, who has been convicted in a civil lawsuit for sexual abuse, has other legal fronts open. A New York judge has set for March 25 the trial of the case in which he is accused of 34 charges of falsehood derived from three payments to hide scandals (one of them an extramarital affair with the porn actress Stormy Daniels) in the campaign of the 2016 presidential elections.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is investigating whether he illegally interfered in Georgia’s 2020 election, has said she plans to announce in the coming months whether to press charges. Willis has hinted that the possible indictments will arrive in August. In a recent letter to county Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville, he indicated that he plans for many of his staff to work remotely most days during the first three weeks of August and asked that judges not schedule trials and in-person hearings during part of that time for safety reasons.
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