Now that Donald Trump is facing a new criminal case that this time concerns his mishandling of classified materials originating from his time in office, attention has turned to what evidence is available against him — and CNN has startling details.
In short, Trump was caught on tape explicitly spelling out that he was showing documents and describing one of the docs he purportedly possessed as secret in nature, a status he said on the tape that he did not take official action to change while president. He has more recently alleged that the classified documents that became an issue were, in fact, declassified — a claim he raised once put under serious legal threat.
Donald made the earlier remarks captured fatefully on tape at a gathering at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, in the months after he left office. The meeting’s attendees included individuals who were working on an autobiography for Mark Meadows, who was the White House chief of staff when the Trump administration closed up shop. The existence of the recording had already been the subject of news reports, but its specific contents had only been relayed via summary until CNN somehow obtained a transcription of relevant portions.
Acknowledging the classification status of a potentially highly sensitive doc, acknowledging that you took no action to declassify the claimed document while still in a legal position as president to do so, and seemingly showing papers to basically random bystanders that may have included that very document isn’t a recipe for success! In fact, it’s seemingly a spell for criminal charges. These details are, to be clear, all based on reports made this week from CNN, but the veracity of the situation is looking increasingly likely.
“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump said at one point. “Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” he also said. “This was done by the military and given to me.” It’s kind of remarkable for Trump to have just asserted what he was doing in such specific terms. He probably didn’t expect his comments might later figure in a criminal case against him. CNN noted that “secret” is a specific term for a level of classification held by certain government documents. Trump claimed that the document he was referencing characterized hypothetical plans of attack against Iran behind which top military official Mark Milley was in support.
