Prosecutors have tape of Trump discussing classified document he kept after leaving office

Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of former President Donald Trump acknowledging that he held onto a classified document about Iran war plans after leaving the White House, POLITICO has confirmed.

In the recording, Trump says that he should have declassified the material while he was president, according to a person granted anonymity to speak openly to POLITICO. That acknowledgment implies that Trump did not take formal steps to do so while in office.

The audio suggests Trump was holding the document during the recorded conversation, the person said. Because it is an audio recording, it’s unclear who viewed the document.

The recording was made during a meeting held at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey in July 2021, the person said, where people were helping Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, write a memoir. One of Trump’s aides routinely taped the interviews he gave for books being written about him that year, according to The New York Times.

CNN first reported on the existence of the recording Wednesday.

A Trump spokesperson in a statement to POLITICO called reports of the recording “political persecution.”

“Leaks from radical partisans behind this political persecution are designed to inflame tensions and continue the media’s harassment of President Trump and his supporters,” the spokesperson said. “The DOJ’s continued interference in the presidential election is shameful and this meritless investigation should cease wasting the American taxpayer’s money on Democrat political objectives.”

The Justice Department is currently investigating Trump's handling of classified material, though he denies wrongdoing. The majority of the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified material has centered on documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

James Trusty, a lawyer representing Trump in the case, told CNN Wednesday night that Trump's position was that he had declassified the material he took with him upon leaving office.

“When he left for Mar-a-Lago with boxes of documents that other people packed for him that he brought, he was the commander in chief,” Trusty said. “There is no doubt that he has the constitutional authority as commander in chief to declassify.”