Former President Donald Trump claims he was only spouting “bravado” and wasn’t actually showing off “highly classified” plans to attack Iran in a caught-on-tape 2021 meeting with book researchers at his New Jersey golf resort.
Floating the latest in a string of excuses, Trump effectively said he was lying during the audiotaped chat at his Bedminister golf resort.
The truth, Trump claimed, was that he was only shuffling newspaper clippings and resort blueprints — even though the recording caught him claiming to have top secret stuff.
“I would say it’s bravado,” he told ABC News. “If you want to know the truth, it was bravado. I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about, but I have no documents. I didn’t have any documents.”
Trump asserted that he only wanted people to think that the papers were classified to drive home a point about the danger of war with Iran.
“I’d hold them up and I said: ‘You can’t let this stuff happen.’” Trump said. “But that was not documents and it wasn’t classified.”
The former president even ruffled through a stack of documents on his desk in front of reporters in what he called a reenactment of his actions at Bedminster.
“I have papers from 25 different things....I have all different stuff interspersed,” he said. “There’s no highly, highly classified documents in there.”
Prosecutors say Trump showed off a classified document about Iran at the meeting, suggesting they have more incriminating evidence that he was not simply blowing smoke.
Trump, 77, was hit with a 37-count indictment by special counsel Jack Smith, charging him with mishandling classified documents he took when leaving office and obstructing the government’s effort to get them back. He pleaded not guilty.
The damning audiotape documenting the Bedminster meeting is expected to be a key piece of evidence against Trump at a possible trial.
On the tape, he tells participants in the meeting that he has a highly classified document about Iran and would like to show it to them. He says he cannot publicly reveal the document because it remained classified.
The tape demolishes Trump’s often-repeated claim that he had already declassified all the documents he took from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate. It also offers powerful evidence that he knowingly kept classified documents.
Prosecutors subpoenaed security footage from Bedminster, a published report said Wednesday, raising the possibility that Smith has more evidence from inside the New Jersey club.
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