On Tuesday, CBS News’ Catherine Herridge reported that the mainstream media’s “smoking gun” audio of former President Donald Trump — which was likely leaked by the Department of Justice — actually has nothing to do with the case being brought against him.
Amid the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) attempt to indict Trump on charges related to the mishandling of supposedly classified documents, audio emerged of the former president discussing “secret” documents. While the media and the left took this audio as an admission of guilt, many on the right pointed out that it is not clear whether Trump actually had the documents in his possession during the discussion or whether he was looking at newspaper clippings or other documents about a similar topic.
BREAKING: DOJ claims Trump is on tape showing classified docs on July 21, 2021, the docs have never been found
But 6 days before on July 15, the New Yorker had an article where Milley accused Trump of wanting to strike Iran
Is it possible he was just holding the article? pic.twitter.com/qt4RNtHLFR
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 28, 2023
In the leaked audio, Trump was heard discussing General Mark Milley’s plan to invade Iran — which never came to fruition, as Trump was the first president in decades to not start a new war.
The media reported that this audio was the “smoking gun” that will prove the DOJ’s case against Trump. However, Herridge reports that the “Iran Attack Plan” document is not even a part of the DOJ’s case against Trump.
Trump repeatedly stated that he did “nothing wrong,” and emphasized that “we had a lot of papers — a lot of papers stacked up. In fact, you could hear the rustle of the paper and nobody said I did anything wrong.”
Herridge noted this in her reporting, writing: “Trump has consistently said he declassified all the records he took from the White House.”
According to previous reporting from CBS News, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump for the “willful retention of National Defense Information” includes a “transcript” of the conversation from the leaked audio.
However, Herridge has now revealed that the supposedly “secret” document that Trump was discussing during the conversation at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course is not part of the indictment.
“CBS News has learned that Trump has not been charged for keeping the document he’s talking about on that tape. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office declined to answer our questions about the Iran memo or the audio tape,” the CBS journalist reported.
