‘These are the papers’: Audio clips reveal Trump’s conversation about classified documents

In an audio exclusively obtained by CNN, former President Donald Trump can be heard admitting the possession of secret documents that he did not declassify.

Earlier this month, Trump appeared for his arraignment at a Miami courthouse where he pleaded not guilty to over 37 felony charges filed against him related to the manhandling of classified government documents.

The recording that first appeared in CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360’, uncovers new details of the meeting that occurred in Bedminster, New Jersey where the Republican leader spilled the beans.

The conversation is a critical piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump.

In the audio clip, Trump can be heard saying, “These are the papers,” while he also discussed Pentagon’s plan to attack Iran.

The two-minute-long clip also records Trump and his aides joking about Hillary Clinton’s emails.

“Hillary would print that out all the time, you know. Her private emails, one of Trump’s staffers said.

Referring to former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner, Trump responded, “No, she’d send it to Anthony Weiner.”

The conversation

This is how the rest of the conversation between Trump and his staffer went.

Staffer: Like when Milley is talking about, ‘Oh you’re going to try to do a coup.’ No, they were trying to do that before you even were sworn in.

Trump: He said that I wanted to attack Iran, Isn’t it amazing? 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.

This was done by the military and given to me.

See as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

Staffer: Now we have a problem. (Laughs)

Trump: It’s so cool. I mean, it’s so, look, her and I, and you probably almost didn’t believe me, but now you believe me.

Staffer: No, I believed you.

‘There was no document’

Meanwhile, in an interview with FOX News last week, Trump said, “There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things.”

He added, “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.”

In an apparent response to the leaked audio clip, Trump’s campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, “The audio tape provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all.”

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