CNN obtained copies of the recording described in ¶34 of Trump’s Espionage Act indictment. This is my take.
“This thing just came up.”
Shortly after the CNN clip starts, Trump says, “I have a big pile of papers, this just came up.” He’s saying that, remember, after having transported the documents from Mar-a-Lago to Bedminster for the summer. His comment that, “this just came up,” suggests he was not only carrying these documents around, but reviewing them.
Given the fact that Trump’s lawyers weren’t able to find this document, it means he was reviewing them … before they disappeared forever.
“These are bad sick people”
Trump compulsively shared this document for revenge — the same reason he put together the dumbass Russian binder. It not just speaks to intentional retention of documents, but it shows that he intended, from the start, to retain documents to exact revenge on his perceived detractors.
Note that this is the same reason he released classified information at least once while President — when he shared details about the Josh Schulte investigation with Tucker Carlson on the same day the FBI planned to search Schulte’s home. He did so because of false claims he had been wiretapped, but also did so to blame President Obama for the leak.
Trump’s pathological need for revenge would be very very easy to exploit by anyone willing to push Trump’s buttons.
“You probably almost didn’t believe me, but now you believe me”
As multiple reports regarding this document explained, Trump was lying. This document didn’t come from Milley, it dated back to Milley’s predecessor, sometime in 2019. Nevertheless he kept saying, “this was him, this totally wins my case.”
So it didn’t prove his case. Milley didn’t want to attack Iran, but Trump was using an unrelated document to claim that he did.
But Trump was using it — waving a document he described as highly confidential — to substantiate a false claim.
“She’d send it to Anthony Weiner, the pervert”
Trump and his aide joke about Hillary printing this out and sending it to Anthony Weiner. That’s unsurprising: Trump always rationalized his own mistreatment of information by pointing to Hillary’s email server (this Roger Parloff post is a remarkably thorough debunking of Trump’s claims).
But understand how this comment will appear against the context of the five attacks on Hillary Trump used to get elected, cited in the indictment.
Jack Smith plans to use Trump’s past condemnation of Hillary to show that Trump knew this was wrongful. So even his false quip about Weiner will make this evidence more valuable.
And then, at the end of this recording, Trump called a staffer to bring some cokes, emphasizing how banal sharing classified information was for Trump.
Update: Several people questioned who leaked this in comments. Remember that at an equivalent point in Michael Cohen’s prosecution — when SDNY was about to get the recording Cohen made of Trump ordering a hush payment — Trump released the tape to preempt damage. In that case, Trump would have gotten the recording via discovery, because he was participating in the Special Master review. In this case, Trump independently owns copies of the recording, which was made for his own purpose.
It’s certainly possible someone else (perhaps the journalists who took it) released it. But Trump releasing it — then blaming Jack Smith just as Aileen Cannon gets involved in such issues — would be the most predictable thing ever.
Update: Fixed my misuse of avenge.