Trump sticks with his story that he was showing off newspapers and not a classified doc

Former President Donald Trump insisted Tuesday that he had ‘done nothing wrong’ after CNN released an audio clip Monday night in which he’s heard showing people a document that he says was ‘highly confidential’ and contained ‘secret information’ about Iran. 

Earlier this month, Trump was indicted on 37 federal charges for the mishandling of classified documents, with the indictment saying that Trump possessed a classified battle plan against Iran, which he reportedly showed a writer and publisher working on a book on July 21, 2021 at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Last week during an interview with Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, Trump said ‘it wasn’t a document’ and said he had copies of newspaper articles and magazines on his desk, a line he repeated to Fox Tuesday during a campaign swing to New Hampshire.

‘I said it very clearly – I had a whole desk full of lots of papers, mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans, copies of stories, having to do with many, many subjects, and what was said was absolutely fine. And very perfectly,’ Trump said. ‘We did nothing wrong. This is a whole hoax.’

On Monday night, CNN released an audio recording of that conversation in which Trump says of the Pentaon and military officials, ‘they presented me this – this is off the record – but they presented me this.’ 

The former president was trying to push back on a New Yorker story that said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and other military officials feared that Trump would start a war with Iran to hold onto power after he lost the 2020 election. 

The story was published a week before the conversation the audio recording captured reportedly happened.   

‘This totally wins my case, you know? Except it is highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information,’ Trump is heard saying in the leaked clip. 

A woman on the recording then commented, ‘Hillary would print that out all the time,’ a reference to classified documents. 

‘She’d send it to Anthony Weiner, the pervert,’ Trump replied. 

The indictment listed meeting attendees as Trump, two of his aides, a writer and a publisher who were working on former White House of Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ memoir. 

The rustling of papers is heard multiple times during the two-minute clip. 

A photograph of boxes that contained classified documents that was released as part of the 37-count federal indictment against former President Donald Trump  

Former President Donald Trump holds up a ‘fake news’ license plate Tuesday during a campaign swing to Manchester, New Hampshire

‘By the way, isn’t that incredible?’ Trump also said. ‘These are the papers. This was done by the military and given to me.’

‘See, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know,’ he added, noting how it was ‘interesting’ and ‘cool.’ 

On Tuesday, Fox asked the 2024 presidential contender if he was concerned about his own voice being on the recording. 

‘My voice was fine,’ Trump answered. ‘What did I say wrong on those recordings?’ 

‘I didn’t even see the recording,’ the ex-president added. ‘All I know is I did nothing wrong. We had a lot of papers, a lot of papers stacked up. In fact, you hear the rustle of the paper.’ 

‘And nobody said that I did anything wrong other than the fake news, which of course is Fox, too,’ Trump added.