Donald Trump boasts of having a confidential document in the presence of several people in a recording broadcast by American media on Monday evening, a file which was cited as a key exhibit in the federal indictment against the former 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 two-minute recording, broadcast for the first time by CNN, seems to confirm that this document is a top-secret plan detailing a hypothetical attack against 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 some papers and continuing: “Look. It came from him, they presented this to me, it’s confidential, but they presented this to me. It was from him, it was from the Secretariat 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.
“Election interference”, Trump replies
The former president denounced Monday evening, after the broadcast of this recording, “new electoral interference”. He accused Special Prosecutor Jack Smith – who is behind his indictment and whom he describes as “deranged” -, the Department of Justice and the US Federal Police (FBI) of having “unlawfully leaked and “highlighted”” 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 to his campaign for the US presidential election of 2024, had been set for August 14 by the judge in charge of 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 and information on nuclear weapons, in unsecured places in his private residences.