Former President Donald Trump said during a July 2021 meeting, six months after leaving the White House, that a document in front of him was “classified” and “highly confidential”, according to a person briefed on the matter.
This meeting, with people helping his former chief of staff with a book, has been previously reported, but new details about Trump’s specific comments seem to demonstrate explicitly that he was aware that the documents he had taken with him from the White House included classified information. The tape is expected to be a key piece of evidence in the case against him that special counsel Jack Smith filed this week, with seven counts related to his possession of tons of classified documents.
Trump also indicated that he could not show the document to the people in front of him – many, if not all of whom, did not have security clearances to view sensitive government documents – and added: “As a President, I could have declassified them; now I can’t,” according to the person briefed on the matter, who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.
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Trump then declared the document “classified” and a woman in the room replied, “Now we have a problem,” according to the person familiar with the recording.
Many details of what is said on the recording were reported earlier by CNN, which also first reported the existence of the recording.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email regarding the new information.
The meeting took place in July 2021, by which time National Archives officials had already spent at least two months pressuring Trump’s representatives to return documents they thought they had in his possession.
The transcript demonstrates that Trump was not only aware he had sensitive material, but also had it with him at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the meeting took place, and that he knew that he no longer had the authority to declassify the material.
Trump’s meeting was with two people helping Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff, with a memoir about his tenure in the White House. Trump aides were also present.
At the time, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whom Trump had appointed, had been the subject of several media portrayals depicting him as lobbying against an erratic president in the final months of the presidency.
Trump cried about Milley.
“Isn’t it amazing, I have a big stack of papers,” Trump said at one point. Papers could be heard rustling, and then Trump began to appear to point to a specific document, saying, “Look, that was him.” At another point he said, “It was the Ministry of Defense and him.”
He described something in front of him as “like, highly confidential”, and argued that it was really Milley who wanted to attack Iran (in fact, Milley warned against such a move).
At one point Trump was interrupted and a woman in the room could be heard on the recording referring to Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State whose mail server Trump used as an attack line during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump said Clinton would send material “to Anthony Weiner, that perv,” referring to the former congressman who was married to a Clinton aide.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that, while still in office, he declassified all the material he took with him from the White House (although the charges may not hinge on whether what whether it has been classified). But his assertion seems to be contradicted by the recording.
“As president, I could have declassified them; now I can’t,” Trump said, according to the person familiar with its content. He then repeated that something was “classified” as he and one of the women in the room spoke to each other, according to the person familiar with its content.
“Isn’t that interesting? That’s so cool,” Trump said, adding, “You probably almost didn’t believe me, but now you believe me.
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