It turns out that lots of people were taping and recording Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago and they are turning those recordings over to federal prosecutors.
That recording, of a meeting at his Bedminster club in July 2021, captures a few-minute segment where the Trump discusses a classified document and suggests he was showing it to others in the room. That recording, first reported by CNN, is described in the 37-count indictment, and prosecutors included quotes from the transcript such as, “This is secret information. Look, look at this … See as president I could have declassified it.”
Prosecutors also obtained multiple recordings from at least one other source, including a version of the Bedminster tape.
During the summer of 2021, sources said multiple people were making recordings of Trump as he held conversations with journalists and biographers.
The notion that people were running around Mar-a-Lago filming and recording while government and classified documents were unsecured and lying around drives home the national security threat posed by the former president’s theft of classified documents.
The good news for the American people is that there seem to have been plenty of individuals around who were recording the former president.
There isn’t just one Trump. There are many, and it might not matter who the judge is that hears the case. It looks like the federal government is going to be able to present overwhelming evidence that that former one-term president knowingly broke the law and jeopardized national security.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association