acknowledging he had sensitive secret documents that were not declassified. we re breaking down the recordings and what they mean for the special counsel s criminal case against him. also tonight, cnn is live in ukraine where the death toll has been rising from a new russian missile strike in a crowded city center. president volodymyr zelenskyy is calling the attack a manifestation of terror. this comes as vladimir putin is on damage control after the mutiny by wagner mercenaries. all ask former u.s. defense secretary mark esper about the rebellion and how it s influencing putin s war strategy. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. we begin this hour with powerful evidence against donald trump in the special counsel s case against him. cnn exclusively obtaining recordings of the former president talking about highly classified material in his possession. this comes as trump is speaking out
our calendars. yes ought to use a pencil, not a pen. it s monday, august 14th, it s a little less than two months from right now, and that is the day that judge aileen cannon has set for the trial of donald j. trump in the case having to do with classified documents, the legally and dangerously illegally and dangerously kept by him at a mar-a-lago. relatively speaking, that s soon, perhaps surprising given judge cannon s history of rulings considering to be favor to believe the disgraced ex-president who apointed her. but things get murky. the date august 14th is subject to delay, maybe delay after delay. in addition to what one would normally expect, illegal tactics, on one side to drag things out, there is another complicating factor, and that is complexities having to do with the classified material itself and something called the classified information procedures act. as we said, we re using pencils at this point, not pens. our experts will explain all of it in greater
boxes. the new york times reports this, quote, during president trump s years in the white house his aides began to refer to the boxes full of papers and odds and ends he carted around with him almost everywhere as the beautiful mind material. it was a reference to the title of a book and movie depicting the life of john f nash jr., the mathematician with schizophrenia played in the film by russell crow. one trump official who spoke anonplacely to describe the situation said while the materials were disorganized trump would notice if someone rifled through them or they were not arranged in a particular way. it was the person said, quote, how his mind works but the times describes trump s organized chaos was nothing new. here s a look at his office at trump tower back in 2015 from an interview with wall street germ. this office is all you, and it s a little bit junky. yeah. you know what? this i just got a few weeks ago. this is from the marine corp. that s the chair f
and each new paperback edition, because last i checked it was 27, and it s pretty sure it was 37 the other day. there are more psychiatrist who are, like, sign me up, i m on board, i cosign. 37, 37. anyways, dr. dodes has been on this since the start, he will join us at the end of the hour. he predicted that if donald trump gets charged with a crime, he will sound like saddam hussein. and last night in new jersey, he really did. and so, dr. dodes will join us at the end of the hour for his analysis. i will be tuning in for it, and see how many more psychiatrists sign on after that. okay, as of 10:01 pm tonight, it s 37. and maybe by tomorrow, he could bring in some more. let s get it up to 50. all right, have a good show. thank you. we have breaking news this hour from the washington post under the headline trump rejected lawyers efforts to avoid classified documents indictment. the washington post is reporting that one of donald trump s lawyers tried to settle
colleagues olamon, as don t offend k mark, a man smiling sanders-townsend with us from miami, katie phang. the twice impeached and now twice indicted donald trump has become the first ex president to face criminal charges from the federal government. over the next two hours, my colleagues and i along with some special guests are gonna break down the justice department s case against the former commander in chief. a case that we saw for the first time just yesterday when the bombshell 37 count indictment was unsealed. the indictment which also names the trump aide and valet, walt nauta, as his coconspirator. outlined criminal charges related to more than 100 classified documents that federal agents recovered from trump s mar-a-lago resort last august. trump faces 31 counts of violating the espionage act, through willful retention of classified records. he faces another six counts stemming from his alleged efforts to impede the investigation. nauta it was also charged with si