Former US President Donald Trump, indicted for allegedly negligent handling of state secrets after leaving the White House, discusses classified plans to attack Iran he allegedly kept at home, in recorded conversation released Monday night by CNN.
According to the American news channel, it is “a conversation in July 2021, shortly after his departure from power, during which former President Donald Trump admitted to having kept a confidential document from the Pentagon relating to a potential attack. against Iran”.
“Here are the papers,” Mr. Trump says in the recording, speaking to advisers about the Pentagon’s attack plans.
“It was made by the army and given to me,” he explains. “As president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but it’s still a secret.”
“Now we have a problem,” points out an adviser. “How interesting,” Mr. Trump replies.
After pleading not guilty, Mr. Trump, in power from 2017 to 2021, was charged in mid-June by a federal court in Miami. The indictment, which mentions part of the recording broadcast by CNN, brought 37 charges against Mr. Trump. He then spoke of “heinous abuse of power”, denying having kept classified documents.
This sets the stage for a historic and potentially very damaging trial for his campaign for the 2024 US presidential election.
He is accused of endangering the security of the United States by keeping confidential documents, including military plans or information on nuclear weapons, in a bathroom or storage room of his luxury residence in Mar-a-Lago, in Florida.
He is also accused of having refused to return these documents despite court injunctions, which led to him being charged with “illegal retention of information relating to national security”, but also “obstructing justice” and ” false testimony”.
Donald Trump had already been charged in early April by New York State justice for several accounting frauds in connection with a payment made before the 2016 presidential election to silence an X film actress, who says she was his mistress.
He has not yet finished with legal problems. A Georgia prosecutor must announce by September the result of her investigation into the pressure he allegedly exerted to try to change the result of the 2020 presidential election.
A special prosecutor is also investigating his role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.