there is tape sound. donald trumpformer head United States of America and currently the top pick for the 2024 Republican Party nomination, Saved in July 2021 you have one document one of the Pentagon Possible attack on Iran what did you know classified.
The recording, whose existence was revealed by CNN on Wednesday and later confirmed by other media, private attorney Jack Smith who searches potentially irregular use of documents by Trump after leaving the White House. AND decodes some of the arguments the former president used, defending his questioned theses authority to keep documents and what was there unclassified all, claiming a non-existent ability to do it “automatically” or “just thinking about it”.
This record done July 2021 at the Bedminster club (New Jersey) and that undermines logic. While neither CNN nor the rest of the media have heard of it directly, sources familiar with its contents assure that Trump admitted to having a document he knew was confidential and was heard commenting on it even though he wanted to make it public. , it happened aware of the limitations that he once left the presidency to declassify the material.
Specifically, Trump talks about how he can’t discuss the document for a few minutes because no longer has the authority to declassifyand he suggests he should have done it while he was still in the White House.
an attack on Iran
In Bedminster, Trump met with two people working in a room. Mark Meadows biographyChief of Staff, as well as several assistants. Among the latter Margo Martin, who routinely records interviews that the former president gave to make sure it was quoted correctly.
This meeting took place shortly after ‘The New Yorker’ published the following information: General Mark Milleywho was then the head of the Joint Staff of Defense, had given instructions for make sure the president is not doing any illegal acts In his last days at the White House. Milley, according to this article, anxious after the president’s electoral defeat and before he left the Oval Office launch an attack on iranHe said the military had repeatedly advised him that it “could start an unjustified full-scale conflict”.
Part angered embersHE He wanted to discredit Milleyand at the meeting at his club, he mentioned a document he was sure was written by the military and presented a supposed plan of attack. It is common for military leaders to prepare documents containing various scenarios to present to the commander-in-chief, and the US media assures that this possible plan of attack will be premeditated. prepared previously under theWhen Joseph Dunford was Chief of Staff..
Investigation
Record For months, According to some sources, especially since March, the team has special prosecutor smithWhat intensified its investigations and interrogated other witnesses about the soldier and the document, as well as came to meet Milley in person to inquire about the matter.
The investigations into Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to support the idea of the independence of the Justice Department investigation, appear to be coming to their final stage. Besieged by numerous court cases, they represent one of the most serious legal threats to Trump, who is currently indicted in New York and convicted in a civil lawsuit for sexual assault. And in focus possible irregular use of documents and other presidential material, such as the possibility of Trump’s trial obstruct justice in this investigation
More than 300 documents with different classification levels The secret Republicans got from the White House healed. These include others that he handed over to the Department of Justice in June 2022, a year after he left office, after months of resistance to the National Archives in January of last year, and others, some with the highest grade of secrecy. which one FBI It was seized in August last year at his private residence, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, when a search operation was conducted with a judicial warrant on suspicion that he had not returned all the material.
Trump’s response
A Trump spokesperson made a statement after sharing the recording on CNN on Wednesday and said, “radical partisan leaks after this political persecution designed to ignite and follow voltages media bullying President Trump and his supporters.
James Trusty, an attorney representing Trump in this case, insisted on CNN after the news that the president had “constitutional authority” to declassify. What he refuses to say is whether the former president made this classification in the specific case of the document on Iran.