As we reported Monday night, CNN released leaked audio that the network claims is a recording of former President Donald Trump discussing a secret document in his possession that concerned a potential attack on Iran. Some thought that the recording, which had been mentioned in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment, could be a key part of the case and that it might be extremely damning for Trump.
But CBS is reporting Tuesday evening that the Iran memo is not even one of the classified documents that the former president is being charged with unlawfully retaining:
Smith’s 37-count indictment against Trump includes 31 charges of willfully retaining national defense information. It generally outlines each of the 31 classified records that prosecutors allege Trump illegally kept, without naming the exact subject matter. The Iran memo is not part of the list of the 31 records in the indictment, the source said.
Throughout the years-long federal investigation into Trump’s White House records, investigators have collected more than 300 documents with classified markings on them — including 103 seized during the execution of a search warrant at Trump’s Florida residence last year.
Sources told the network that it was unclear if the Iran memo was ever even recovered.
As we reported Monday, CNN claimed that it obtained the audio recording of a 2021 meeting in Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf resort where the current GOP frontrunner allegedly discussed holding classified documents. In the recording, the former president says, “These are the papers” while discussing Pentagon plans regarding Iran; he then refers to something else as “highly confidential” and notes, “See, as President, I could have declassified it. And now I can’t.”
On Tuesday, Trump denied that he had broken the law:
I had a whole desk full of lots of papers and mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans, copies of stories having to do with many, many subjects.
And what was said was absolutely fine and very perfectly. We did nothing wrong. This is a whole hoax.
In another interview, Trump said that he did not have any sensitive records and blamed his recorded claims on “bravado.”
The Bedminster meeting reportedly revolved around Mark Milley and his efforts to undermine Trump during his presidency:
Sources familiar with the matter said that the discussion of the allegedly classified document arose as Trump was talking about Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, who had been portrayed in a story in The New Yorker as having fought in the last days of the Trump administration to keep the president from attacking Iran.
In the recording of the meeting, the former president tells those with him the document discredited any criticism against him.
Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 37 counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
This case is full of unexpected twists.