Now bombshell audio reveals Trump admitting he had classified documents he shouldn’t have taken

New audio reveals details of Donald Trump’s conversation with aides about his unauthorized — and possibly illegal — possession of classified documents.

CNN announced this on Monday evening the two-minute recording of the former president’s 2021 rally in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he spoke about the documents he failed to release before leaving office, but took with him anyway.

The conversation has become pivotal in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump.

Specifically, Trump appears to be saying he is holding a Pentagon document with a “secret” classification detailing plans to attack Iran.

“These are the papers,” Trump says as he discusses the Pentagon’s attack plans.

The documents were likely part of the large amount of material the ex-president mistakenly — and possibly illegally — removed from the White House when he left office

This quote was not included in the Justice Department’s indictment, which issued 37 counts against the ex-president. He pleaded not guilty to the charges at a trial in Miami earlier this month before returning to his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey for a press conference.

The audio is from a July 2021 interview that Trump took part in in Bedminster for people working on the memoir for the former president’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

Those in attendance at the meeting, according to the indictment, included Trump, two of his staffers, a writer and a publisher. They allegedly received secret information about the attack plan on Iran, Smith notes in the indictment.

Trump said “these are the papers” in the recording when referring to something he claimed was “highly confidential.”

The exchange was one of two charges noted when he alleged that Trump had exposed classified information to people without security clearances.

Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a 37-count indictment against Trump

In an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier last week, Trump appeared to contradict what is now known from the audio recording by saying he did not carry any documents during those meetings.

“There was no document,” he stressed in the extensive interview. “That was a huge amount of papers and everything else about Iran and other things.”

“And it may have stopped or not, but that wasn’t a document. I didn’t have a document per se,” Trump added. “There was nothing to downgrade. Those were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.’

At the time of the interview, Trump was fixated on an article in the New Yorker about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. The piece alleged that Milley was worried about Trump starting a conflict with Iran and argued against the president beating the nation in the Middle East.

“I was just thinking because we were talking about it. And you know, he said, ‘He wanted to attack Iran’, and – isn’t it great, have a big stack of papers just this thing – look. This was him. They presented this to me – this is off the record.’ Trump says, according to the audio.

“This was done by the military and given to me,” Trump continued, before noting that the document remained classified.

‘Is not that great? This completely wins my case, you know? Except it’s highly confidential – secret. This is classified information.’