It inspires a familiar feeling in response to much associated with his presidency. When audio leaked of Donald Trump straight up telling people that he still had classified documents after leaving the White House while facing indictment for that exact thing, the brain shifts in a matter of moments from shock to the kind of thing you always knew would happen.
All the searching for a smoking gun on any number of alleged malfeasances in office completely ignored the fact that one day he would blithely tell someone what he’d been up to.
“These are the papers,” Trump says in the audio, made in July 2021 at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, while talking to the team working on his former chief of staff Mark Meadows’ memoir. Parts of the recording transcript were cited as evidence in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith’s 49-page indictment of Trump. It is the second indictment he’s faced, this time on charges he had mishandled classified documents after leaving office.
Incidentally, Meadows’ book has already caused his former boss serious headaches, by claiming Trump met with many, many people between his first positive COVID-19 test (which was followed by a negative) and his announcement that he had the virus.
“I have a big pile of papers,” he says on the tape, going on to discuss a document he describes as a “plan of attack” against Iran, given to him by chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Mark Milley. “They presented me this. This is off the record. But they presented me this.”
He also talks about how “highly confidential” the documents are and says “this is secret information” while — ah, never change, Donald — apparently showing whatever secret thing he’s talking about to everyone in the room.
“This was done by the military and given to me,” he continues, before noting the material couldn’t be used in the book unless one could “declassify it”.
“You see, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know,” he said.
“Now we have a problem,” someone in the room says, prophetically.
“Isn’t that interesting? It’s so cool,” Trump says.
The recording ends with him calling for someone to bring in a few Cokes, proving that on one front at least, Trump is a man of his word.
