Latest on Trump cases: New audiotape leaks in classified docs case as DOJ ramps up 2020 election probe

During a 2021 meeting at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., former President Donald Trump appeared to brag about possessing a classified document that he acknowledged he had not declassified before leaving office, according to an audio recording of the conversation released Monday by CNN.

The tape is thought to be a key piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over his handling of classified documents, because it appears to undercut the former president’s claims that he’d previously declassified the material.

The leaked recording is one of several new developments in the multiple ongoing investigations Trump is currently facing.

Classified docs case

A partial transcript of the audio recording from the 2021 meeting in Bedminster was included in Trump’s 37-count indictment, which was unsealed earlier this month. On the tape, Trump can be heard discussing what he calls “highly confidential” military plans for an attack on Iran. The former president explains that he could have declassified the documents when he was in office, but he did not.

“These are the papers,” Trump says on the recording. “See, as president I could have declassified it, now I can’t.

“Isn’t that interesting?” he says, adding: “It’s so cool.”

In a Fox News interview last week, Trump insisted that “there was no document” and claimed he had merely been discussing news clippings.

Also on Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied a Justice Department request to file under seal the names of 84 potential witnesses. Prosecutors want Trump to be prohibited from discussing the case with witnesses as it moves forward in court.

Meanwhile, Walt Nauta, Trump’s aide and valet, who was charged as his co-conspirator in the classified documents case, was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court in Miami. But the arraignment was postponed because Nauta’s lawyer told the judge his client had been unable to find a Florida-based attorney and that Nauta was stuck in Newark, N.J., after his scheduled flight sat on the tarmac for hours and then was canceled.

The arraignment was rescheduled for July 6.

2020 election probe

Separately, the DOJ’s investigation of efforts by Trump and his advisers to overturn the 2020 election results is “barreling forward on multiple tracks,” the Washington Post reported Monday.

According to the paper, Smith’s prosecutors are “focused on ads and fundraising pitches claiming election fraud” as well as plans for “fake electors” — pro-Trump Republican substitutes who were offered as potential replacements for electors in swing states that Joe Biden had won.

Investigators have “extensively questioned multiple witnesses” about Trump’s lawyers — including Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and John Eastman — about the fake elector plot and whether they were following specific instructions from Trump himself.

Last week, CNN reported that Smith had compelled at least two of the so-called fake electors to testify before a federal grand jury in Washington, by giving them limited immunity. That activity, CNN noted, could “signal that investigators are nearing at least some charging decisions in a part of the 2020 election probe.”

Hush-money case

A federal judge in New York City was set to hear arguments Tuesday over Trump's attempt to move his criminal case from state court, where he was indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, to a federal court, where the former president’s lawyers could try to have it dismissed.

In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges stemming from Bragg's investigation into a hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels. Bragg alleges that Trump falsified his company's business records to hide the payouts made in 2017 to his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to compensate Cohen for orchestrating payments during his 2016 presidential campaign to Daniels and a Playboy model, Karen McDougal. Both women say they had sexual relationships with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.

Per the Associated Press, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein will listen to the arguments but isn’t expected to immediately rule.

While requests to move criminal cases from state to federal court are rarely granted, the case is unprecedented: Trump is the first U.S. president ever to be charged with a crime.