The audio recording, released by CNN, shows the former US president admitting in 2021 to possessing “highly confidential” documents about a secret plan to invade Iran. The two-minute recording is one of the pieces of evidence in the trial in which he is charged with 37 crimes related to the presence of classified documents in his home in Mar-a-Lago. But Donald Trump claims the recording actually clears him of these crimes – of which he says he is innocent. And the polls remain favorable.
“These Are the Papers”, is heard Trump say in the recording, made during an interview at his golf course in Bedford, New Jersey, with a writer and editor working on the memoir of his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. There were also two members of his team in the room.
“This was done by the military, given to me,” adds the former president, who is said to keep secret documents from the Pentagon with plans to attack Iran. Trump is referring to something that is “highly confidential” that “could have disqualified me as president, but now I can’t.” A woman laughs: “Now we have a problem.”
The fact that he allegedly shows classified documents to others goes against what he said in an interview with Fox News. “There were no documents. There was a huge amount of papers and everything else that talked about Iran and stuff,” the former president told the conservative station. “It wasn’t a document. It wasn’t anything to release. It was newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles”he claimed.
In the recording, Trump’s interlocutor references the controversy of former opponent Hillary Clinton, who used private emails for official purposes when she was secretary of state. Hillary printed this [documentos secretos] always. The private e-mails,” the woman says. The president laughs, “No, she sent it to Anthony Weiner.” were discovered that prompted the then-FBI director to reopen the Clinton trial – days before the 2016 presidential election, with the former first lady saying this was one of the reasons for losing the election.
Trump’s response
Also Monday evening, after the recording was known, Trump wrote on his social network – Truth Social – that it “exonerates” him, without providing further explanation. “The crazy special counsel, Jack Smith, who worked with the Justice Department and the FBI, illegally released and “circumvented” a recording and transcript of me, which is actually an exemption, rather than what they want you to makes believe,” he wrote. “This ongoing witch hunt is yet another scheme to disrupt elections. They are cheaters and scammers!”he added.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that the recording “provides the context that proves once again that President Trump has done nothing wrong.” You are referring to the invasion of Iran, since the recording was made after a news report appeared in it New Yorker in which then-Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, allegedly argued against an attack on Iran and worried about what Trump might do in the final days of the presidency. “They tried that before he was sworn in,” Trump’s aide says in the recording.
If the goal is to influence the 2024 presidential election, the most recent polls show that it won’t work. An NBC poll, conducted June 16-20 and published over the weekend, found that if the Republican primary were held today, the former president would have 51% of the vote nationwide. More than the 46% in the April poll. His main opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has 22% (down 9 points from two months ago). Even with the federal indictment, Trump continues to score points.
The former president was charged with 37 federal crimes, including endangering U.S. security by storing confidential documents (including military plans and nuclear weapons information) in his Florida home. Some of those documents were in a bathroom. He is also accused of refusing to return these documents, despite court orders, amounting to “illegal retention of information pertaining to national security”, “obstruction of justice” and “false testimony”.
Trump, the first former US president to face trial, was also charged in New York in April with allegedly fraudulent payments to a former porn star during the 2016 campaign to force her not to publicize the affair they both had . Trump rejects all allegations,
Source: DN
