An audio recording that includes new details from a 2021 meeting at which former US President Donald Trump discusses holding secret documents he did not declassify has been released.
The recording, from a July 2021 interview Trump gave at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort for people working on the memoir of his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, is a critical piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over the mishandling of classified information. The recording aired Monday on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.
The special counsel’s indictment alleges that those in attendance at the meeting with Trump — a writer, a publisher and two of Trump’s staff members — were shown classified information about a Pentagon plan of attack on an unspecified foreign country.
“These are the papers,” Trump said in a moment that seems to indicate he was holding a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran. “This was done by the military, given to me.”
