on the bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending so the nation averts a default next week. president biden and speaker mccarthy are defending the agreement as some of their parties are also railing against it. we ll bring you the results of that vote as soon as it happens. but first, to a cnn exclusive tonight. reporting the federal prosecutors have donald trump on tape in his own words acknowledging that he took a sensitive national security document with him when he left the white house. that is what multiple sources tell cnn. and i ll speak with one of the former president s attorneys in just a moment. but we are told that trump s comments in the 2021 recording suggest that he knew that he kept classified material and wanted to share it, but understood his limitations post presidency. in other words, he knew that this was likely false when he said it. by the way, they become automatically declassified when i took them. and the same goes for this. i
but now there s news of this damning tape that s put more focus on a different jurisdiction on that federal probe in washington where trump was caught on tape admitting key parts of a crime, including stealing documents after leaving office. the tape is from after he was in the white house, 2021, and that s bad for him based on what he appears to admit, because prosecutors are already using it while gathering their grand jury testimony, and it s showing jurors how trump acknowledges and admits himself on the tape that he had classified materials. this is a total breakthrough in the evidence in this case. real talk some people might say, all right, ari we already know trump took the documents down to mar-a-lago and the feds seized them and took them back. didn t we know all that? yes, but in court to win a case like this, prosecutors must prove, one, the documents were classified. two, trump willfully took or directed action to take the documents. and three, he intended to kee
to the effect of, you know, if i can show you this if you undermine these arguments. but making clear that he doesn t believe he can show it to them. and i think that is a key part of the story. it s very much is. the other part is that this really gives us one of the first indications of what else might be here. it is not just letters from kim jong-un, what do we know based on your reporting about the military significance of the documents that we are talking about. right, that has kind of been the dispute over was a classified, was not classified. this is a plan that we are told was essentially about potentially striking a run. obviously the u.s. is a lot of plans for the pentagon, backup pans, in case of emergency. and that is what we are told this was. that he was referencing. trying to say, essentially, but it was something that general milley had prepared for him. obviously milley is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. we are told actually that this was not a
we are not trying our case leak by leak. let me ask you, that you signed a letter to congress saying that this was all just the result of a rush to pack job. essentially. you said when president trump left office there was little time to prepare, the white house staffers, gsa, administration employees, they quickly packed everything up in boxes and shipped them to florida. but it seems that this tape indicates that at least trump knew specifically that he had this specific document? what the letter is designed to do, as much as you want me to try to leak that in the press. the letter was designed to tell congress that we have a very politicized national archive archivist that is going after one president only that they
you the authority as the president to do it. so if somebody walks in and says pardon jack johnson, he was treated horribly by racists, you can pardon him without the application process. same thing goes with declassification. you don t have to go through a process. i m not disputing that. but like with the pardon process you would need to tell someone in the bureaucracy that you ve done it. right. so who did he tell? we are not trying our case leak by leak. so let me ask you this. you signed a letter to congress saying that was all just the result of a rushed pack job. you said when president trump left office, there was little time to prepare. the white house staffers, the gsa employees quickly packed everything up in boxes and shipped them to florida. but it seems this tape indicates at least trump knew specifically he had this specific document. what the letter is designed to do, as much as you want me to try the leak in the press, the letter is designed to tell congress