'This is secret information': Trump on audio recording talks about not declassifying documents
Former President Donald Trump said on an audio recording in 2021 that he had taken classified information with him to his Florida home after leaving the White House, ABC News has confirmed.
Trump is heard on the audio recording saying, as described to ABC News, "As president I could have declassified, but now I can't."
The recording, first reported Friday morning by CNN, was made as part of an interview Trump gave for a book and was obtained by the special counsel’s team.
A federal grand jury voted to indict Trump on at least seven federal charges late Thursday as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. The indictment comes after more than 100 documents with classified markings were found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022.
According to a portion of the transcript of the call obtained by ABC News, Trump is heard acknowledging that the document he claims to have is "highly confidential" and "secret."
"Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. This was done by the military and given to me," a transcript of the audio obtained by ABC News says.
The transcript appears to suggest that Trump is showing the document in question to those in the room.
It says, "Well, with Milley -- uh, let me see that, I'll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn't that amazing? 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," the transcript said. "We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff -- pages long, look. Wait a minute, let’s see here. I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. This was done by the military and given to me."
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
