A trusted campaign aide to former President Donald Trump has been revealed as a key figure in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents probe.
Susie Wiles, a top official in Trump’s failed reelection bid, is the person to whom Trump allegedly showed a classified map in summer 2021, ABC News first reported late Wednesday, citing sources.
Wiles is only identified in the indictment of Trump as a “PAC Representative” who was meeting with the former president when he showed off the map during a discussion of what he said was a deteriorating security situation in the unnamed nation.
Trump told Wiles that he “should not be showing the map” to her and “not to get too close,” the indictment claims.
The damning episode is cited in the indictment along with Trump’s caught-on-tape claim to show a highly classified plan for a U.S. attack on Iran to book researchers at his Bedminster, N.J., golf resort in 2021.
The incidents could amount to powerful evidence against Trump because they show he knew he held onto classified information and that he wanted to use the documents for his own personal reasons.
Trump has spun various excuses for his actions, including most recently asserting that he was only expressing “bravado” in the Bedminster meeting and didn’t actually have any classified documents.
Legal analysts say the tape would likely prove very persuasive evidence to a jury, despite Trump’s half-baked denial. The classified map incident could further bolster the case against Trump, especially since his own top aide would be the one relating the episode.
WIles, who is also a senior aide in Trump’s 2024 White House comeback bid, is one of dozens of aides, associates and employees who have been forced to testify to the grand jury. The revelation does not suggest that Wiles is cooperating with Smith or that she has flipped on Trump.
Neither Trump nor Wiles immediately responded to the revelation Thursday.
Trump regularly rails against Smith as a “thug” and accuses him of bullying his associates in an effort to get them to dish dirt on him.
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