Federal officials have an audio recording of former President Donald Trump discussing he had a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran, CNN reported, citing multiple unidentified sources.
The recording is of a July 2021 meeting at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to the outlet. The attendees included multiple people working on an autobiography of Trump’s previous chief of staff Mark Meadows, in addition to aides for the former president.
The report comes as the former president’s attorneys are seeking a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland about the Justice Department investigation of classified documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club.
Garland named Jack Smith to oversee investigations into Trump, including whether the former president mishandled classified documents and whether he obstructed justice by defying a subpoena to return documents he took from the White House.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in the investigation. Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, told USA TODAY in a statement, “Leaks from radical partisans behind this political persecution are designed to inflame tensions and continue the media’s harassment of President Trump and his supporters.”
Trump’s remarks on the recording suggest he wanted to share the information but was aware of restrictions following his presidency, CNN reported.
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Investigators have asked Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the moment, according to the outlet.
The meeting in the recording happened after The New Yorker reported that, at the end of the Trump administration, Milley called on the Joint Chiefs to ensure there were not unlawful orders from the then-president. On the recording, Trump says the document came from Milley, according to CNN.
When asked at a CNN town hall event earlier this month whether he had showed classified documents to anyone following his presidency, Trump said “Not really. I would have the right to. By the way, they were declassified after.”
The National Archives in January 2022 obtained 15 boxes of presidential records stored at Mar-a-Lago. Multiple outlets reported last week that two of the former president’s employees moved boxes of papers one day before federal officials went to Mar-a-Lago to collect classified documents.
Contributing: David Jackson and Bart Jansen
