Former President Trump admitted in a July 2021 recording that he had not declassified “secret information” that remained in his possession, CNN reported Friday.
“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump said, according to a transcript of the recording obtained by CNN.
“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” he reportedly added at another point. “This was done by the military and given to me.”
CNN had previously reported that federal prosecutors had obtained a recording of the July 2021 meeting, in which the former president appeared to acknowledge that a Pentagon document in his possession about a potential attack on Iran remained classified.
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However, the transcript captures Trump explicitly saying that he had not declassified the document and could no longer do so, despite his later, public claims to the contrary.
In the meeting with two authors working on an autobiography for his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump reportedly sought to counter an article from The New Yorker that suggested that Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had dissuaded him from attacking Iran.
“He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t that amazing?” Trump said, according to CNN. “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.”
“All sorts of stuff — pages long, look,” he added. “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.”
Trump and his legal team said Thursday night that they had been informed of an indictment against the former president in the classified documents case.