Trump on Tape: ‘I Can’t’ Declassify Sensitive Docs I Took

Ryan Bort
·2 min read
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Donald Trump’s longstanding defense of why he stored hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House is that he declassified them before his term in office ended. He admitted on tape in 2021 that this is a flat-out lie.

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump said of “secret” military information he had retained, according to CNN, which obtained a transcript of the tape. The network reported last week that the Justice Department has audio of the former president admitting he kept a classified document about a proposed attack plan on Iran and acknowledging he knew he couldn’t declassify it.

“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump also says on the tape, according to the transcript. “This was done by the military and given to me.”

“All sorts of stuff – pages long, look,” he adds later. “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.”

The Justice Department indicted Trump on Thursday in its investigation into his handling of classified material. Rolling Stone confirmed that he has been indicted on seven charges related to possession of documents, obstruction, and false statements. It’s the second time Trump has been charged criminally in less than four months after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged him with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in April. It was the first time a former president had been criminally charged, and Thursday’s indictment marks the first time one has been brought up on federal charges.

The indictment is still under seal, but it likely shows that Trump’s repeated claims that he did nothing wrong and that he declassified everything before leaving the White House are bullshit. Trump even told Sean Hannity on Fox News last year that he could declassify sensitive material just by thinking about it. “If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified — even by thinking about it,” he said. “Because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or wherever you’re sending it. There doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn’t have to be.”

Legal experts have disputed Trump’s claims of telepathic declassification powers.

During a town hall event last week, Sean Hannity asked Trump about the recording in the Justice Department’s possession. The transcript of the tape had not been reported at the time. Trump dismissed the tape as anything significant. “All I know is this: everything I did was right,” he said.

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