Trump was recorded discussing a sensitive document he kept after leaving office

Federal prosecutors investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified materials have a 2021 recording of Mr Trump discussing a sensitive military document he kept after leaving the White House, two people who the matter had been notified.

The recording, in which Mr. Trump also admitted knowing the document was classified, could undermine his repeated claim that he had already released material that remained in his possession after he left office. Prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Trump obstructed efforts by federal officials to recover documents he carried after leaving office and whether he violated laws governing the handling of classified materials.

The existence of the recording was previously reported by CNN.

The tape was made during a meeting Mr Trump held in July 2021 with people who helped his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, write a memoir of his 10 months in the White House, according to people briefed on the matter . The meeting was held at Mr. Trump’s club in Bedminster, NJ, where he spends summers.

Until now, the focus of the document search has largely been on material Mr. Trump had with him at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, rather than New Jersey.

Mr. Meadows did not attend the meeting, but at least two of Mr. Trump’s aides did. One, Margo Martin, routinely recorded the interviews he gave for books written about him that year.

On the recording, Mr. Trump began swearing at his hand-picked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A. Milley, who was described in media reports at the time as having been wary of Mr. Trump’s attack on Iran in the last days of the war. the presidency, according to those briefed on this.

Mr Trump then began to refer to a document he was carrying, saying it was prepared by General Milley and related to the attack on Iran, people briefed on the matter said. Among other comments, he mentioned his classification skills during the discussion, said a person briefed on the matter. You can hear Mr Trump interacting with paper on the tape, although it is not clear if this was the document in question.

The Justice Department has gotten its hands on the recording in recent months, a potentially key piece in a mountain of evidence prosecutors have amassed under special counsel, Jack Smith, since he was appointed in November to oversee federal investigations into the Mr. Trump.

According to two of the people briefed on the matter, Ms. Martin was asked about the recording during a grand jury appearance.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said in a statement that “leaks from radical partisans behind this political persecution are intended to raise tensions and continue media harassment of President Trump and his supporters.” He accused prosecutors of meddling in the election through the investigation, which began in early 2022.

Mr. Trump has long touted what he believes was his ability to automatically release materials and has even said he could do it with his mind.

His allies have insisted he had a standing order to release material as he moved it from the Oval Office to the White House residence, a claim that several former senior administration officials say is nonsense. Members of his legal team have warned his assistants not to rely too heavily on that argument as a defense in the documents case.

That claim was most articulated by Kash Patel, a close adviser to Mr. Trump, who testified before a grand jury under an immunity deal forced upon him by prosecutors.

The recording obtained by the special counsel’s office could help prosecutors undermine any argument by Mr. Trump that the documents he took with him when he left the White House had been released. It could also help them demonstrate that Mr. Trump was aware that his abilities to possess — and show off — classified material were limited.

Detectives have questioned witnesses about General Milley in several interviews for several weeks, though they have generally left unclear what they were looking for.

Investigators have several if not all of the recordings of book interviews Mr Trump gave, according to two of the people familiar with the events.

In an interview, Mr Trump said he had taken “nothing of great urgency” when asked if he had anything in his possession.

Mr. Trump is ambiguous when asked if he ever showed classified documents to people after he left the White House. At a CNN event at City Hall in May, he said, “Not really. I would be entitled to it. By the way, they were released afterwards.

Mr. Meadows seemed to echo Mr. Trump’s claim about General Milley in his book.

“The president recalls a four-page report typed by Mark Milley himself,” the book said. “It contained the general’s own plan to attack Iran, which would involve deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump on more than one occasion during his presidency. President Trump rejected those requests every time.”

But according to a person familiar with the document in question, the report was not written by General Milley and, in fact, dates from an earlier period in the Trump administration, when General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Jim Mattis was the Secretary of Defense.

General Milley has been interviewed by detectives about the matter, according to a person who was aware of the discussion.