WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 25: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a joint news conference with Lebanese ... [+]
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday said his boasting about having a secret document detailing U.S. plans for an attack on Iran as “bravado,” telling ABC News and Semafor “I was talking and holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents. I didn’t have any documents.”
“I just held up a whole pile of — my desk is loaded up with papers,” Trump said. “I have papers from 25 different things,” but said that he didn’t mean top secret “plans” when he used that word on the tape. “Did I use the word plans?” he said. “What I’m referring to is magazines, newspapers, plans of buildings. I had plans of buildings. You know, building plans? I had plans of a golf course.”
On CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday evening, Anderson Cooper essentially called BS on Trump’s bravado. “When we left you last night, the former president had just floated a new explanation for the tape of him two summers ago apparently sharing a classified plan for attacking Iran, which he was not authorized to have – with people not authorized to see it,” Cooper said. “And that explanation now is, ‘I was just BS-ing people. He didn’t say ‘BS.’ He said it was ‘bravado’ – fancier word, same BS.”
CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE - JUNE 27: Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald ... [+]
CNN first aired the audio Monday, in which Trump appears to be showing sensitive government documents to individuals at his home in New Jersey. The recording was made during an interview for a memoir by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.
In the immediate aftermath of CNN’s airing the audio, Trump suggested the recording was “actually an exoneration” of Trump’s handling of government documents. In a post published on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote “The Deranged Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ & FBI, illegally leaked and ‘spun’ a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe. This continuing Witch Hunt is another ELECTION INTERFERENCE Scam. They are cheaters and thugs!”
Trump stands accused of 37 counts of mishandling government documents, including national defense information, which the former president has insisted he was allowed to possess.