Legal experts wasted no time Wednesday responding to an exclusive CNN report revealing federal prosecutors have obtained audio evidence of Donald Trump in a 2021 meeting at his Bedminster golf course admitting he had held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, admitting he wanted to share the document, and admitting he knew he legally could not because he did not have the authority to declassify it post-presidency.
“War plans are among the most highly classified documents. Puts pressure on DOJ to indict, and a jury to convict,” writes NYU Law professor of Law Ryan Goodman, a former U.S. Dept. of Defense Special Counsel.
“Make no mistake. This is squarely an Espionage Act case,” Goodman continues, calling the news a “bombshell.”
“It is not simply an ‘obstruction’ case,” says Goodman. “There is now every reason to expect former President Trump will be charged under 18 USC 793(e) of the Espionage Act. The law fits his reported conduct like a hand in glove.”
“Audio recording is a meeting with several people who don’t have security clearances. If Trump discussed content of document it is even worse – and raises its own criminal exposure,” Goodman also writes.
On-air, CNN reported in the audio recording a piece of paper could be heard rattling in the wind.
Calling it “a critical find,” MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin says the alleged audio recording of Trump “reveals another new, significant fact: In summer 2021, Trump had at least one classified document with him at Bedminster. Trump lawyers told DOJ in December 2022 that a search of Bedminster by private investigators yielded no such records.”
Rubin sums it all up: “That DOJ & the Special Counsel have apparently spoken to witnesses from Milley to Fitton and back suggests they have evidence regarding Trump’s motives and state of mind in addition to his actual taped statements.”
Rubin is not the only one focused on the Bedminster aspect.
Pete Strzok, the former FBI Counterintelligence Deputy Assistant Director, pointed to a tweet he wrote last year that reads: “Better check Bedminster… On May 6, NARA [the National Archives] emails Trump to say material is missing and may be at MAL [Mar-a-Lago].”
“On May 9, Trump gets on a private plane from Palm Beach to Bedminster. On video, several boxes are seen loaded onto the plane,” Strzok also tweeted.
On Wednesday he wrote: “AND the meeting in question appears to have been at Bedminster. As I’ve said for a while, better check Bedminster.”
“Appears Trump – in his own voice,” Strzok adds, “- knew the procedures for declassifying information – knew he hadn’t done it – may have disclosed it to someone not authorized to receive it Huge. Filling in those 18 USC 793 elements of the crime.”
18 U.S. Code § 793 is the federal statute for “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information.”
Other experts also weighed in.
“Holy shit,” exclaimed white collar criminal defense attorney Robert Denault, “Hugely significant piece of evidence.”
Attorney George Conway appeared to agree, citing the late, iconic Washington Post executive editor: “Fair to say Ben Bradlee would have called this a ‘holy-shit story.'”
Conway, a former Republican and devout never-Trumper did not hold back: “It would actually be perfect for the most colossally nihilistic moron the world has ever seen to go to prison for doing something so brazenly illegal, yet at the same time so unimaginably pointless and stupid.”
Richard Painter, the former Bush 43 chief White House ethics lawyer points out that Trump “lied about it,” and called that a “felony.”
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti calls it “absolutely blockbuster evidence.”
“It proves that Trump *knew* he kept highly classified documents after he left office, that he shared the classified info with people who didn’t have clearance, and ‘suggests … he was aware of limitations’ on his ability to declassify.”
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