Former US President Donald Trump, accused of allegedly negligent handling of state secrets after leaving the White House, discusses secret plans to attack Iran that he allegedly kept at home, in a recorded conversation published by CNN Monday night.
Listen to the excerpt in the video above the article.
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According to the American news channel, it is “a conversation in July (July) 2021, shortly after he left power, during which former President Donald Trump admitted to keeping a secret document from the Pentagon related to a possible attack against Iran.”
“Here are the papers,” Mr. Trump said in the recording, speaking to advisers about the Pentagon attack plans.
“The army made it and gave it to me,” he explains. As president, I could have declassified that. Now I can’t, you know, but it’s still a secret.”
“Now we have a problem,” one of the consultants points out.
Mr. Trump replies: “How interesting.”
After pleading not guilty, Mr. Trump, who held power from 2017 to 2021, was charged in mid-June by a federal court in Miami (Florida, southeast). The indictment, which refers to a portion of the recording broadcast by CNN, lists 37 counts against Mr Trump. He then spoke of an “outrageous abuse of power”, denying keeping secret documents.
- Hear the chronicle of Luc Laliberté, an expert on American politics broadcast live daily at 8:20 am via QUB Radio :
This sets the stage for a historic and potentially very damaging trial to his campaign for the 2024 US presidential election.
He is accused of endangering the security of the United States by keeping classified documents, including military plans or information on nuclear weapons, in a bathroom or storage room at his luxury residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
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He is also accused of refusing to return these documents despite court orders, which has led to charges of “unlawful retention of information relating to national security”, as well as “obstruction of justice” and “perjury”.
Donald Trump was already charged in early April by New York state courts with numerous accounting frauds in connection with a payment made before the 2016 presidential election to silence an X-movie actress who says he was his lover.
He is not done with the legal troubles yet. The attorney general of Georgia (South) must announce by September the outcome of her investigation into his alleged pressure to try to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
A special prosecutor is also investigating his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
