Documents in front of people, which is not what you re supposed to do with classified documents. we don t know for sure exactly what trump was rustling in that recording. it could have been a plan to attack iran from the joint chiefs or it could have been a random piece of paper used as a prop.s either way trump seems very comfortable talking about these documents, even waving them around in front of a group of people who do not have the proper security clearance. and finally, the third thing we learn from this reporting is that trump knew that the document in his possession was still classified. on the recording trump clearly understood that he could not show this document to the people in the room with him because he knew he actually did not classify that document as president. all of this matters a lot. throughout the entire mar-a-lago saga, trump and his lawyers have tried out severals lines of defense. first they claimed trump did not
Reports about this audio recording are accurate, it may be the most damning evidence yet in the special counsel s documents investigation because this alleged reporting tells us three really important things before now. number one, donald trump clearly knew he had classified documents in his possession after he left the white house. at the time of that recording, the national archives had already repeatedly asked trump to return all white house documents. the head of nara had written and pleaded in an e-mail to trump s lawyer a few months prior that it was absolutely necessary that we obtain an account for all presidential records. but now here we have trump on tape talking to strangers about classified documents that he says he has making no mention of the fact that, oh, by the way, the federal government would like them back, please mr. president. okay. now, the second thing we learned from this reporting is that trump may well have been waving around thosebe classified
Which he describes his awareness of this classified material, thats it was classified, that shouldn t show it, that there were special requirements unlike the things he has said since he was under investigation for withholdingig some of these documents and obstructing a criminal investigation. given given that this is something heth did, carol, righ something that a lot of the conversations were recorded, trump had to have know somewhere in his reptilian brain, like the deep brain there existed recordings of him saying these things that are exactly counter to the defense he started to mount in the mar-a-lago documents investigation, no? i think it s important to remember the pattern of donald trump when he was president and since. i ll give you an example. in phil and my interview with
Reporting at the post for now i think nine months that prosecutors did not have evidenceos to suggest at least months and months t ago, did no have any hard evidence to suggest donald trump took these documents to quote-unquote make money, makete bank on this material but that it was really about, like, these are mine, i m really still the president, i haveti things to brag about and boast about, and i hold onto these. we know that prosecutors have continued h to investigate unde jack smith ever since the special counsel was appointed in november last year. prosecutors have continued to seek information about the possibility that donors were encouraged ors lured by the flashing of these documents, that essentially donald trump s boasting of what he had was used to create someha favor with dons and to bring the money in that way. we don t know that prosecutors
Theoryof or that he was waving them around and potentially showingd them ready to show themg to other people? well, both. and the latter, the waving them around and showing them to other people isng really important fo the espionage act. so remember the search warrant for theem documents at mar-a-la listed aat bunch of different statutes, which doesn t have to be the whole universe. they can bring charges other than the ones they listed, but that s a statute that predates the classification system, so those technicalities don t even matter. if that criminalizes taking without authorize documents related to national security, which could be useful to the enemy or which could hurt the united states, and the showing and carelessness and content of these documents sort of tells us this is something he might be willing to do. we might see charges related to bedminster, too, but even if we don t this is very useful in an