‘This is secret’: Recording emerges of Donald Trump allegedly showing sensitive document to guests

A recording has emerged of Donald Trump showing off to guests at his golf club – and it spells serious trouble for his criminal case.

A recording has emerged of former US president Donald Trump allegedly showing a “secret” document from his presidency to guests at his golf club in New Jersey.

The recording, first aired by CNN on Tuesday, is part of the government’s case against Mr Trump in federal court. Prosecutors allege he illegally retained national security information after leaving office and stored it at his private residences.

The audio was reportedly recorded, with Mr Trump’s knowledge, at his club in Bedminister in July of 2021. According to the indictment against him, the former president was speaking to a number of people, including a writer working on a memoir for his former chief of staff, the publisher of that memoir, and two members of staff. Prosecutors allege none of them had a security clearance.

“Trump showed and described a plan of attack that Trump said was prepared for him by the Department of Defence and a senior military official,” court documents say.

“Trump told the individuals that the plan was highly confidential and secret.”

The highly classified document in question allegedly outlined plans for war against Iran.

Former US president Donald Trump. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP

The recording begins with Mr Trump and his staff complaining about General Mark Milley, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he was president (he remains in that role under Joe Biden).

A book about the Trump White House, published in 2021, claimed Gen Milley had repeatedly advised the president against attacking Iran. He reportedly thought Mr Trump was “willing to do anything to stay in power” after losing the 2020 election, and feared he might provoke a crisis in the hope of declaring emergency powers.

Ultimately, there was no attack on Iran.

“With Milley – let me see that. I’ll show you an example,” Mr Trump says in the recording, as papers are audibly shuffled in the background.

“He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this. This is off the record, but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defence Department and him.

“We looked at some. This was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff. Pages long, look. I just found – isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know.

“Except it is, like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look at this. You attack ... I was just thinking, because we were talking about it. And you know, he said, ‘He wanted to attack Iran.’ And what – these are the papers! This was done by the military and given to me.

“I think we can probably, right? Declassify it? See as president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know. But this is still a secret. Isn’t that interesting? It’s so cool.”

The recording ends, in rather mundane fashion, with Mr Trump asking a staff member to “bring some Cokes in please”.

Mr Trump arriving at the criminal court in Manhattan for a different case, involving his alleged hush money payments to an adult film star. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP

Mr Trump has been charged with 31 counts of wilful retention of national defence information, and one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal, and false statements and representations.

Prosecutors allege Mr Trump took the documents, which belonged to the government, not him, and stored them at his residences in Florida and New Jersey. It further alleges that he failed to return the documents when repeatedly asked, showed some of them to people who lacked the necessary security clearances, defied a subpoena, and lied to investigators, falsely claiming he had in fact returned all the relevant material.

The FBI raided his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, last August, where prosecutors allege boxes full of sensitive government documents were found, some with markings indicating they were highly classified.

Posting on his social media platform, Truth Social, after CNN played the recording, Mr Trump hit out at the lead prosecutor in the case, Jack Smith, whom he called “deranged”.

He claimed Mr Smith had “illegally leaked and ‘spun’ the audio, which he characterised as “actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe”.

“This continuing witch hunt is another election interference scam. They are cheaters and thugs,” Mr Trump wrote.

After his arraignment at a Florida court earlier this month, Mr Trump labelled the case a “heinous abuse of power”.

Speaking to supporters at his Bedminster club, the former president said he had suffered “political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation”.

“They ought to drop this case immediately, because they are destroying the country. I had every right to have these documents. I did everything right, and they still indicted me.”

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.