New Delhi: In a fresh development in the Mar-a-Lago case, a new tape with former US President Donald Trump’s 2021 conversation about some highly-classified documents has been accessed by CNN. The report by CNN claims that in the audio, Trump discusses holding secret documents he did not declassify. Notably, Trump was earlier indicted for illegal retention of classified documents that he took at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach in Florida after leaving the president’s office.  


Trump later pleaded not guilty to 37 counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents he allegedly kept. 


CNN reported to have found a 2-minute video in which Trump has reportedly talked about the same documents including having military secrets and a plan to attack Iran. CNN stated citing its previous report that Trump at the time was furious over a New Yorker article about Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley that said Milley argued against striking Iran and was concerned Trump would set in motion a full-scale conflict. According to CNN, in the audio, Trump says, "These are the papers," while discussing the Pentagon attack plans, a quote that was not included in the indictment. 


Trump and his aides also reportedly joked about Hillary Clinton’s emails after the former president says that the document was "secret information", CNN mentioned in its report.   


“Hillary would print that out all the time, you know. Her private emails,” Trump’s staffer said, as quoted by CNN. 


“No, she’d send it to Anthony Weiner,” Trump responded, referring to the former Democratic congressman, prompting laughter in the room, as mentioned by CNN which cited the tape. 


CNN reported that Trump, on the audio recording, says “these are the papers” and refers to something he calls “highly confidential” and seems to be showing others in the room. This is just the opposite of his claims in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier where he said that he did not have any documents with him, the CNN report further said. 


"There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things," Trump was quoted as saying on Fox, as reported by CNN. 


"And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn’t have a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles," he had added. 


According to CNN, the audio recording comes from a July 2021 interview Trump gave at his Bedminster resort for people working on the memoir of Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff. The special counsel’s indictment alleges that those in attendance – a writer, publisher and two of Trump’s staff members – were shown classified information about the plan of attack on Iran. 


Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement that “the audio tape provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all.” 


 


What The Tape With Trump’s Conversation Says 


According to CNN, the recording begins with Trump claiming “these are bad sick people,” while his staffer claims there had been a “coup” against Trump. 


“Like when Milley is talking about, ‘Oh you’re going to try to do a coup.’ No, they were trying to do that before you even were sworn in,” the staffer says, according to the audio, reported CNN. 


In the next part, as per CNN, the audio makes clear there are papers shuffling as Trump tells those in attendance he has an example to show. 


“He said that I wanted to attack Iran, Isn’t it amazing?” Trump says as the sound of papers shuffling can be heard. “I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this – this is off the record but – they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him,” claims CNN citing the recording on tape. 


CNN mentions that Trump and his aide begin talking about Clinton’s emails and Weiner, whose laptop caused the FBI to briefly re-open its investigation into her handling of classified information in the days before the 2016 election she lost to Trump. 


Later, Trump returns to the Iran document, according to the audio recording and indictment transcript, CNN reported. 


“I was just thinking, because we were talking about it. And you know, he said, ‘He wanted to attack Iran, and what…,’ ” Trump says. 


“These are the papers,” Trump continues, according to the audio file accessed by CNN. Trump offers new reason for not giving classified material to investigate. 


“This was done by the military and given to me,” Trump makes the big claim, according to CNN, before noting that the document remained classified. 


 “See as president I could have declassified it,” Trump says. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.” 


“Now we have a problem,” his staffer responds. 


“Isn’t that interesting,” Trump says. 


Trump: “It’s so cool. I mean, it’s so, look, her and I, and you probably almost didn’t believe me, but now you believe me.” 


Writer: “No, I believed you.” 


Trump: “It’s incredible, right?” 


Writer: “No, they never met a war they didn’t want.” 


Trump: “Hey, bring some, uh, bring some Cokes in please.” 


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