Topline
Former President Donald Trump said the leaked audio of him bragging about having a confidential military document in his possession “is just another hoax” in an interview Tuesday, doubling down on his claims that a tape widely viewed as incriminating actually exonerates him.
CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE – JUNE 27: Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald … [+]
Key Facts
Trump told Fox News “everything was fine. We did nothing wrong and everybody knows it,” in an interview from New Hampshire, marking his first in-person comments to the tapes.
CNN on Monday published footage of Trump discussing what he describes as a “highly confidential, secret” document detailing a potential U.S. attack on Iran during a meeting at his New Jersey golf club in 2021, where papers can be heard rustling in the background as if he is showing the documents to people.
Justice Department prosecutors cited the tape in their indictment against Trump on 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents after leaving office, and said it represents one of at least two occasions when he showed confidential documents to people without proper security clearance.
Trump accused the Justice Department of intentionally leaking the tapes in a post on Truth Social Monday and told Fox the incident represents “election interference more than anything else,” referring to his repeated claims that the Justice Department is working on behalf of President Joe Biden to prevent him from being re-elected (it’s unclear who leaked the tape to CNN and other news outlets).
The former president also recently told Fox in a previous interview that he was not showing off a classified document at the New Jersey meeting, but instead was handling “a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things.”
Key Background
In the two-minute recording, Trump appears to present the papers to a writer working on a memoir of his former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, as a rebuttal to a New Yorker report claiming Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley was concerned that Trump wanted to attack Iran. Arguing that the papers he possessed proved the strike was Milley’s idea, Trump said “these are the papers,” while acknowledging he couldn’t retroactively declassify the document. The meeting was cited in the Justice Department’s June 8 indictment of Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The footage contradicts several of Trump’s defenses in the documents probe, including that he had the authority to declassify documents simply by “thinking about it.”
Further Reading
CNN Airs Tape Of Trump Appearing To Discuss Classified Defense Documents (Forbes)
Trump Admits Taking ‘Secret’ Document About Iran Attack Without Declassifying It In Audio Recording, Report Says (Forbes)
Trump Indictment Unsealed: 37 Felony Counts Allege He Could Have Put National Security At Risk (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/06/27/just-another-hoax-trump-brushes-off-leaked-audio-of-him-discussing-classified-iran-docs/