WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) – In connection with the charges against Donald Trump in the affair of secret government documents, a tape recording could become a problem for the former US President. According to the US broadcaster CNN, among others, the transcript of a recording was available in which Trump is said to have admitted that he had not lifted the secrecy of classified information. This is particularly explosive because Trump has repeatedly claimed in the past that the classified information was no longer classified after it was taken to his Mar-a-Lago estate in the US state of Florida. The recording could undermine Trump’s argument.
Specifically, it is about the transcript of a meeting at which Trump discusses a secret Pentagon document about an attack on Iran, as CNN reported on Friday. “As president, I could have lifted the secrecy, but now I can’t,” Trump reportedly said in 2021, according to the transcript. The media reported last week, citing informed circles, that investigators had come across a recording from the summer of 2021 in which Trump had admitted possession of a Pentagon document classified as secret. The New York Times wrote that the audio recording came from a meeting with several people who were helping his former White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, write memoirs.
Trump announced on Thursday evening (local time) that he had been charged in the secret documents affair. The federal police FBI had searched Trump’s private home Mar-a-Lago in Florida in August and confiscated various classified information, some with the highest classification level. Because the Republican kept the documents in his private home long after leaving office, he could have committed a criminal offense. He has now received a subpoena for a court date next Tuesday in Miami./nau/DP/men