(Washington) Donald Trump boasts of having a confidential document in the presence of several people in a recording released by media on Monday evening, and which was cited as a key exhibit in the federal indictment against the ex- president.
We hear the Republican billionaire show this document, by his own admission “secret”, “highly confidential” and not “declassified”, as indicated during his indictment on June 13.
In addition to the passages already revealed by the indictment, the approximately 2-minute recording, broadcast for the first time by CNN, seems to confirm that this document is a top-secret plan detailing a hypothetical attack on the Iran.
About his former chief of staff Mark Milley, Donald Trump says: “He said that I wanted to attack Iran”, then we hear him rummaging through papers and resume: “Look. It came from him, they presented me with this, it’s off the record, but they introduced me to this. It was from him, it was from the Department of Defense and from him”.
The former president makes the remarks, recorded on July 21, 2021 according to the indictment, in front of two employees and two people who came to interview him to write a book – the memoirs of his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to CNN.
“As president, I could have declassified it,” he said of the document. “Now I can’t, you know, but it’s still a secret. »
“Now we have a problem,” a counselor replies with a laugh.
The ex-president denounced Monday evening, after the broadcast of this recording, a “new electoral interference”, and accused the special prosecutor Jack Smith, at the origin of his indictment and whom he describes as “disturbed”, the Department of Justice and the US Federal Police (FBI) for “illegally leaking and ‘highlighting’” the audio recording.
Charged in mid-June with 37 counts including “illegal withholding of information relating to national security”, “obstructing justice” and “false testimony”, Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in federal court in Miami.
The start of his trial, historic and potentially very damaging for his campaign for the American presidential election of 2024, had been set for August 14 by the judge responsible for the case, but the prosecutor Smith asked that it be postponed to Dec. 11, according to court documents filed Friday.
Donald Trump is accused of putting the security of the United States at risk by keeping confidential documents, including military plans or information on nuclear weapons, in unsecured places in his private residences.