Trump claims new documents recording exonerates him

Former President Trump late Monday claimed without providing details that a newly released audio recording of him discussing a “highly confidential” document that remained in his possession after leaving the White House is “actually an exoneration.”

“The Deranged Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ & FBI, illegally leaked and ‘spun’ a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe,” he said in a post on Truth Social. 

“This continuing Witch Hunt is another ELECTION INTERFERENCE Scam,” Trump added. “They are cheaters and thugs!”

The recording, which was referred to in Smith’s indictment but wasn’t released publicly until being aired by CNN on Monday, features a conversation between Trump and a writer and publisher at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey in July 2021. The conversation was part of Smith’s 37-count indictment against the former president over Trump’s handling of classified materials.

Trump can be heard discussing an apparent Pentagon document about plans to attack Iran, acknowledging it is “highly confidential” and “secret information” and joking that “Hillary would print that out all the time, you know, her private emails.”

Despite Trump’s claims that the recording is an “exoneration,” it appears to show that he was aware of how classification works but still retained national defense information.

“See, as president I could have declassified it,” the former president said in the recording. “Now I can’t.”

Trump has provided various responses to the allegations against him, including claiming in an interview with Fox News last week that there was “no document.”

“That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things,” he said in that interview. “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.”