House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sparred with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday over former President Trump’s indictment in the Justice Department’s probe into his handling of classified documents.
Jordan firmly defended Trump during the segment, stressing that “the president’s ability to classify and control access to national security information flows from the Constitution” and that “he can put it wherever he wants, he can handle it however he wants.”
But Bash pushed back, noting a recording of Trump that revealed he acknowledged he couldn’t declassify documents once he was no longer in the White House.
“He says point blank on tape, ‘As president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t.’ … It’s on tape as part of this indictment that he did not declassify the material,” Bash said of Trump, referring to a transcript of an audio recording obtained by CNN.
“Saying he could have is not the same as saying he did it,” Jordan said.
“He said, ‘Now I can’t,'” Bash said.
“Now he can’t — right, because he’s not president now. But when he was president he did declassify,” Jordan said.
“Which means that it’s classified. Which means that what he was holding was classified,” Bash said as the two talked over each other.
“Not if he declassified it when he was president of the United States, for goodness sake,” Jordan said.
“But he’s saying point blank in this audio tape that he did not declassify it. What you’re saying just doesn’t make sense on its face,” Bash said.
Trump was indicted last week on 37 counts in connection to the mishandling of records as well as his efforts to prevent the government from recovering the documents after the end of his White House term, according to the unsealed indictment.
Bash repeatedly pressed Jordan over Trump appearing to admit he did not declassify documents, some of which had to do with the country’s military and foreign defense capabilities, U.S. nuclear programs and potential vulnerabilities of the U.S. and its allies.
“Do you have evidence that the president — when he was president, now former president — actually declassified these documents before he took them?” Bash asked.
“I go on the president’s word and he said he did,” responded Jordan, who has consistently been one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress.