Bret Baier Confronts Trump About Purported Audio of Him Admitting He Took Classified Material: ‘Why Have It?’

Bret Baier Confronts Trump About Purported Audio of Him Admitting He Took Classified Material: ‘Why Have It?’

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Fox News anchor Bret Baier confronted former President Donald Trump about one of the key aspects of the 37-criminal-count federal indictment against him during a sit-down interview broadcast on Monday.

Baier, one of the few news journalists that Trump has been interviewed by in recent memory, asked him to explain the audio tape on which he allegedly says he had secret documents that he did not declassify in his possession and waived them around in front of individuals without proper security clearance. Renowned defense attorney Alan Dershowitz had called the audio tape the “one page” in the indictment Trump should be very concerned about.

Baier noted that the indictment alleges that at “Bedminster on July 21st, 2021 after you’re no longer president, you were recorded saying that you had a document detailing a planned attack on another country that was prepared by the U.S. military for you when you were president. The Iran attack plan.”

“You remember that?” Baier asked.

“It wasn’t a document. I had lots of paper. I had copies of newspaper articles. I had copies of magazines,” Trump said, denying the contents of the tape as Baier read him the exact quote from the indictment.

“This is specifically a quote, you’re quoted on the recording saying the document was ‘secret,’ adding that you could have declassified it while you were president, but, quote, ‘Now I can’t you know, this is still secret, highly confidential.’ And the indictment cites the recording and the testimony from people in the room saying you showed it to people there that day,” Baier clarified.

“It was just the opposite,” Trump shot back.

“You say on tape you can’t declassify. So why have it?” Baier pushed.

“When I said that, I couldn’t declassify it now because I wasn’t president, I never made any bones about that. When I’m not president, I can’t declassify,” Trump replied.

Bret shot back noting again what Trump said on the tape, to which Trump replied, “No, no.”

“Bret, there was no document,” Trump repeated, adding:

That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or made up, but that was not a document. I didn’t have a document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories. Magazine stories and articles.

“I’m just saying what the indictment says. According to the recording and the people in the room,” Baier clarified.

Trump then pivoted to attacking the prosecutors, calling them “very dishonest people, they’re thugs. They’re thugs.”

Baier then asked Trump about speculation that Trump wanted to show the documents to the biographer of his former chief of staff in order to portray the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, as a hawk who wanted to attack Iran.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a document from Milley. Milley, frankly, was incompetent. The last one I’d want to attack with as my leader would be Milley. That I can tell you,” Trump shot back.

Baier then asked, “There are 31 documents listed nuclear capabilities in foreign countries. Related military capabilities to foreign countries, intelligence briefings on foreign countries. Why do you want to hold on to those documents after you were president?”

“I don’t say I do,” replied Trump, who then oddly claimed, “We were discussing with NARA giving them back. All of a sudden, we got raided, which is a violation of my, you know, Fourth Amendment rights. They raided my home and they came in and they took things.”

Notably, the FBI only seized documents from Trump’s home after his lawyers gave a certified letter to authorities claiming no more documents were at Mar-a-Lago, which turned out to be false.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.

The post Bret Baier Confronts Trump About Purported Audio of Him Admitting He Took Classified Material: ‘Why Have It?’ first appeared on Mediaite.