Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told special counsel he didn’t remember ex-president EVER declassifying secret documents before leaving the White House

Ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigators that he had no recollection of former President Donald Trump releasing classified documents before he left the White House.

ABC News reported this on Sunday morning that Meadows testified that he was unaware of any “standing order” from Trump to release a wide variety of classified documents taken to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and private club.

Since last August’s FBI raid on the property, Trump has insisted that he release all the documents he obtained from the White House.

Trump pleaded not guilty to 40 criminal charges related to mishandling classified material.

ABC also received an early draft of Meadows’s memoir, The Chief’s Chief, which included a description of Trump having a secret war plan “on the couch” of his office in Bedminster, New Jersey, when he met with Meadows’ ghostwriter. and publicist. .

A photo of boxes of classified documents in a Mar-Lago bathroom released as part of the federal indictment against former President Donald Trump

That reference was removed by the time the book was published.

ABC’s sources said Meadows acknowledged to investigators that he asked that paragraph be removed from the book because it would be “problematic” that Trump possessed that document.

Meadows also told special counsel investigators that he had not discussed making those edits with Trump, the network reported.

The first charge in the classified documents case referred to a conversation Trump had with a writer and publisher who was working on a book by Meadows on July 21, 2021.

CNN later obtained an audio recording of the conversation in which Trump can be heard saying that the Pentagon and military officials “presented this to me – this is off the record – but they presented this to me.”

The former president tried to push back a New Yorker story said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and other military officials feared Trump would go to war with Iran to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.

The New Yorker’s story was published a week before the conversation, the audio recording of which allegedly took place.

“This totally wins my case, you know? Except it’s highly confidential. Secret. This is classified information,” Trump is heard saying in the leaked clip.

A woman on the recording then commented, “Hillary would print that all the time,” a reference to classified documents.

“She was going to send it to Anthony Weiner, the pervert,” Trump replied.

The rustle of papers can be heard several times during the two-minute clip.

“By the way, isn’t that incredible?” Trump also said. ‘These are the papers. This was done by the military and given to me.’

“Look, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know,” he added, noting that it was “interesting” and “cool.”

Before and after the audio clip was released, Trump insisted he show news clippings from Meadows’ team.

“I said it very clearly – I had a whole desk full of papers, mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans, copies of stories, dealing with a lot of subjects, and what was being said was absolutely fine. And very perfect,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong. This is a complete hoax.’

He reiterated that point after the audio recording came out.

“All I know is that I didn’t do anything wrong. We had a lot of papers, a lot of papers piled up. You can even hear the rustling of the newspaper,” Trump told Fox News.

Meadows also testified that he didn’t help pack boxes at the end of the administration, while also telling investigators he didn’t see Trump pack any boxes either, ABC said.

After the National Archives initially contacted Trump to recover the documents, Meadows said he offered to help the ex-president search the boxes and assist in retrieving them, but Trump took his former aide not on the case. offer, the network said.