Trump is being charged on 37 counts in the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into his handling of classified documents since he left the Oval Office in January 2021. Federal prosecutors allege that Trump mishandled sensitive national information and obstructed government efforts to retrieve the documents once they were known to be in his possession.
In the 49-page indictment that was revealed on Friday, prosecutors provided a transcription of an audio recording of the former president that was made in July 2021, during which Trump is speaking with a writer, publisher, and two members of his staff at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. The tape features Trump discussing a "highly confidential" record with his guests, and the former president says during the recording that he did not have the document declassified before he left the White House.
"This really is, this is the smoking gun piece of evidence in this case," said Vance, who joined podcast host Preet Bharara on Friday's episode of "In Brief" to discuss the DOJ's indictment.
"This is Trump in essence committing a crime," she continued. "While he's in the room with these folks on tape, he's actually showing classified material that he is not entitled to have, to other people who are not entitled to see it. While discussing his guilty state of mind and knowledge that it's a crime at the same time. It's really pretty remarkable. I can't remember ever seeing anything like this."
The document that Trump shows to his guests is a classified Pentagon document that lays out a potential plan of attack against an unnamed country, according to the DOJ's indictment. During his conversation, Trump tells one of his staffers that, as president, he "could have declassified it," but "now I can't."
Reports regarding the audio recording first surfaced late last month after a source familiar with the DOJ's investigation told CNN that prosecutors were in possession of a recording of Trump acknowledging that he had classified materials. At the time, former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner called the tape one of the several "smoking guns" against the former president in the case.
Other legal experts, such as former special counsel at the Department of Defense Ryan Goodman, have also called the 2021 recording as "highly damning evidence" in the DOJ's investigation.
"This is so significant that it raises the question whether there could be a superseding indictment for dissemination of classified documents/national defense information," Goodman wrote on Twitter.
Tags
Classified Document Handling
Implications for Government Transparency
National Security Concerns
Presidential Accountability
Security Protocols and Safeguards