Donald Trump reiterated on Monday, June 19, that he had not disclosed sensitive material to someone else after leaving the White House. This is despite what prosecutors allege in an unprecedented charge against him, including an alleged tape of him stating otherwise, as reported by ABC News.
2021 Audio Tape
Fox News's Bret Baier had an interview with the former president on Monday. Baier questioned Trump on one of the most important sections of the indictment, which details the 37 federal counts against him.
The indictment states that on July 21, 2021, Trump presented "secret information" to various individuals at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He was apparently aware that the information was still secret and highly confidential.
According to the indictment, Trump said that the information was done by the military and given to him, which seemed to imply that it had anything to do with an assault on Iran.
Prosecutors said the purported conversation in 2021 was captured on tape.
'There Was No Document'
Trump told Baier in the interview that what he was supposedly showing, as heard on the recording, was not a document but only copies of newspaper articles and magazines.
"There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn't have a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles," Trump added.
Meanwhile, a report earlier this month indicated that Trump's legal team has not yet discovered the said document from the 2021 tape recording.
Florida federal prosecutors have charged Trump on charges of mishandling classified information after he left office. He entered a not-guilty plea.
After his arraignment, he gave a statement to his supporters in which he insisted that he "did everything right" and that "I had every right to have these documents," claims that have since been contested by independent legal experts.
In another part of his interview with Fox News, Trump falsely claimed to have no classified information remaining and invoked the Presidential Records Act as a legal basis for taking federal records with him when he left office.
He said that he had taken the papers with him because he was in a hurry to look through his belongings before leaving the White House.
2024 Presidential Bid
When the subject of Trump running for president again came up during the interview, he informed Baier, "I want to make America great again. We had great -- we were respected all over the world. Very simple."
He went on to say that if he were reelected, he would not want his children involved in government. During his first time in office, Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, worked as key advisers. He said it was too painful for the family.
