Explosive sound recording surfaced
Trump deliberately took secret papers home with him
06/01/2023, 08:18 am
Last summer, investigators came across a number of government documents at Trump’s Florida estate. The ex-president claims that the documents are not classified. But a sound recording now brings the Republican into trouble.
According to media reports, investigators have gathered new details in the affair surrounding former US President Donald Trump’s handling of secret government documents. The television channel CNN and other media, citing informed circles, reported that investigators had come across a recording from the summer of 2021 in which Trump had admitted possession of a Pentagon document classified as secret.
He made it clear that he was aware that he had taken confidential material with him after leaving the White House. This could undermine Trump’s argument that he previously released any material found on him after leaving office – i.e. lifted the secrecy of the documents.
According to the reports, Trump’s comments referred to a document on Iran. The New York Times wrote that the audio recording came from a meeting Trump held in July 2021 with several people who helped his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, write his memoirs. The conversation took place at Trump’s property in New Jersey.
The federal police FBI had searched Trump’s private home Mar-a-Lago in Florida last August and confiscated various classified information, some with the highest level of secrecy. The fact that the Republican kept the documents in his private home long after he left office could have made him liable to prosecution. For months, the National Archives tried to get papers from Trump’s administration. Trump’s lawyers eventually handed over documents – but by no means all of them, as the FBI search in Mar-a-Lago revealed.
The US Department of Justice has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the allegations against Trump. The Republican has criticized the investigation against him as politically motivated and has long railed that it is just an attempt by his opponents to prevent him from re-entering the White House. Trump officially announced last November that he wanted to run again as a candidate in the November 2024 presidential election.