Remember the raid at Mar-a-Lago last year, when Donald Trump said he had declassified all the documents they found there? Apparently that wasn’t the case. The Department of Justice has an audio recording of Trump discussing a classified document he held, and yet hadn’t declassified.

The recording came from a July, 2021, meeting at DJT’s golf club in Bedminster, NJ. He was there working with people who were helping his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, write a memoir on his time in the White House. Meadows, however, didn’t attend the meeting. Instead, at least two of Trump’s aides attended, including communications specialist Margo Martin, who would regularly tape interviews Trump gave for books being written about him.

On the taped interview, Trump besmirched the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley. Trump had handpicked Milley as chairman, but by that point he had fallen out of favor with the prickly former president.

Ask Kayleigh McEnany about that.

Trump spoke about a document he had in his possession which he said came from Gen. Milley. However, he couldn’t show it to the attendees because it was still classified, he said. Meanwhile, the sounds of him rustling paper is audible, although it’s not clear if that’s the document in question.

Gen. Milley, he said, had assembled material related to a possible attack on Iran.

This is just one more piece of evidence that DOJ special counsel Jack Smith will hand to prosecutors in his investigation of the former president.

So What Does This Really Mean?

According to a Twitter Spaces host:

Well it means that Trump knew he had retained classified documents after leaving The White House, thus undercutting his claim that he had declassified everything. According to the sources, the recording is considered significant evidence for the investigation that could be used in the potential legal case against Trump. Trump has consistently claimed that he has the authority to automatically declassify documents allowing him to retain presidential records.

Plus, former Mueller investigator Andrew Weissman says this could be the end of the line:

If this reporting is true — and I’m trying not to use hyperbole — this is game over. There is no way that he will not be charged. 

So, from every single aspect of this, if this report is accurate and there is this tape recording, there will be an indictment, and it is hard to see how, given all the evidence that we’ve been talking about, that there will not be a conviction here.

However, Bonchie at Red State — who is no fan of the former president — says this is hypocritical of the DOJ:

It looks as if the DOJ and Smith have settled on the distinction of intent in attempting to prosecute Trump for something Joe Biden unequivocally did, which is to take and keep allegedly classified documents. There is no debate as to whether such documents existed at the current president’s home and former office in the Penn Biden Center. Yet, the DOJ seems content to continue to rewrite the law in order to protect Biden while going after Trump…

Instead, the DOJ has operated as a political arm, selectively applying the law to take down opponents while letting allies off the hook. When that happens, the entire system of justice is undermined.

Trump Fans Weigh In

Trump super fan Jack Posobiec tweeted that this leaked tape was, indeed, a good thing. It showed that DJT thwarted Milley’s dastardly plot to attack Iran!

Milley had a SECRET plan to INVADE Iran and Trump shut him down

The Gateway Pundit echoed Posobiec:

SMOKING GUN? Latest Leak by Jack Smith Is Ridiculous War Plan by Dummy Mark Milley to “Deploy Massive Numbers of Troops” into Iran – Something the White House Scoffed At via @gatewaypundit https://t.co/QgR9x5PUPp

— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) May 31, 2023

A DJT fan girl tweeted:

Oh thank God! Trump prevented war with Iran.

Tenor.com. 

Except other media accounts say the opposite: that Trump wanted to attack Iran in the final days of his presidency, but Milley put a stop to it.

So who you gonna believe? It all depends upon whose ox is being gored, doesn’t it?

We Can Do Better Than Trump

If the tape the DOJ has is authentic, then Trump has been caught in a another lie: that he had declassified all the documents he held.

However, the Biden justice department is, as my late father would say, “crooked as a dog’s hind leg.” They’ll overlook the fact that Joe Biden as Vice President took documents and stored them “in an unsecured garage, accessible to a corrupt, drug-addled son,” as Bonchie put it. Plus, Mark Milley would be thrilled at the chance to throw his former boss under the bus. But consider that it was Gen. Milley who said he would give China a heads-up if the US was going to attack Beijing.

Then again, remember how Trump told us that he would hire only the “best people” when he was president? Yeah, about that.  As a DeSantis supporter tweeted:

But Trump appointed Milley. And Bolton. And Wray. And Sessions. Remember when he appointed Scaramucci who lasted like 3 days. And the list of his horrible appointments and nominations goes on…and on…and on.

And let’s not forget Omarosa.

Don’t the fan boys and girls get tired of excusing this guy? We can do better. DeSantis in 2024.

Featured image: Obama White House Archives/flickr/cropped/public domain.