Aviva Fried, edited by Yanis Darras / Photo credit: MANDEL NGAN / AFP
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4:01 p.m., June 27, 2023
The case of Donald Trump’s confidential documents never ceases to surprise. The CNN channel unveils this Tuesday a very embarrassing recording for the former head of state. In this two-minute audio document, the Republican boasts of having confidential documents at home. What to destroy his defense?
The vice is tightening around Donald Trump in the affair of the confidential documents of the White House. While the former head of state pleaded not guilty to each of the 37 charges during his arraignment in federal court in Miami, CNN has just broadcast a very embarrassing recording for the former president.
So far, his line of defense has been simple: Donald Trump did not know he had classified documents. Except that CNN has just proved the contrary, in this slightly surreal recording. The excerpt broadcast on the American streaming news channel, which is two minutes long, dates from July 2021. When he was no longer president, Donald Trump was interviewed for a book and we hear him boasting about have top secret documents. For example, he mentions a highly confidential plan to attack Iran. He knows for a fact that he shouldn’t have these documents, but he jokes about it with the authors of the book and his staff members.
A defense that falls in the water?
“I have a pile of papers, there, look: it’s secret information, but look, the military wrote them and gave them to me. As president, I could have declassified them, but here, I don’t can’t. But it’s so cool,” he says.
The scene really looks like it’s taken from a bad spy movie parody with a hilarious Donald Trump as he’s committing a federal crime. So far, the former president has denied having secret documents in his possession and this recording will most certainly be one of the central pieces of evidence during his trial, the one that could lead him directly to prison.