Who leaked this audio to CNN — and what does it do to the case against Donald Trump? That question seems more pertinent than the audio itself, which CNN published last night, followed shortly by other major media outlets. But that question may not have an obvious answer, either.

The audio itself sounds rather damning, but its contents are hardly new or unknown to the public. The indictment from special counsel Jack Smith provided a transcript for this exchange, which took place on July 20, 2021 at Trump’s Bedminster Club. Trump knew the discussion was being recorded, as the indictment makes clear. But as this audio also makes clear, Trump knew the material he had remained classified, as he acknowledged in the exchange that he’d never gotten around to declassifying it before he left office (via Twitchy):

The Trump audio:

"See as president I could have declassified it. Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret."

"Now we have a problem," a staffer responds. pic.twitter.com/ftNqOTnfZn

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 27, 2023

If this makes Trump’s situation worse, it only does so in a political sense. For one thing, Trump’s tone makes it sound like he takes the whole thing as a joke, including the fact that he still has classified information in his possession despite not being in office. The text of the audio was bad enough legally as an admission, and a jury hearing Trump laugh about it will likely not be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. Neither will some voters who might have been otherwise inclined to offer the same to Trump, although at this point that group may be surpassingly small, especially among Republican primary voters.

However, even some of his supporters might be inclined to compare this to Trump’s claims in his interview with Bret Baier. Remember this? Transcript via Fox News, emphasis mine:

BAIER: But, according to the indictment, you were here at Bedminster on July 21, 2021, after you’re no longer president. And you were recorded saying that you had a document detailing a plan of 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?

TRUMP: Ready?

BAIER: You were recorded.

TRUMP: It wasn’t a document.

BAIER: OK.

TRUMP: I had lots of paper. I had copies of newspaper articles. I had copies of magazines.

BAIER: I know.

TRUMP: I had copies of everything.

BAIER: This is specifically a quote.

TRUMP: And I know…

(CROSSTALK)

BAIER: 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. So, you say on this — on tape…

TRUMP: I didn’t… (CROSSTALK) It says just the opposite.

Now contrast this with how Trump described it in the audio, emphasis mine:

TRUMP: Well, with [the Senior Military Official]—uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack [Country A]. Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this—this is off the record, but—they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. 

If these were just newspaper and magazine articles, why ask to go off the record? That in itself suggests that Trump knew that he would be in legal jeopardy. But even more obviously, Mark Milley and the DoD wouldn’t have “presented” Trump or any president with only newspaper clippings and magazine articles on war strategy. Trump’s own staff could collate that on their own. And the fact that it’s not just newspaper clippings and magazine articles gets more explicitly established later in the same audio:

TRUMP: I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know.

STAFFER: Mm-hm.

TRUMP: Except it is like, highly confidential.

STAFFER: Yeah. [Laughter]

TRUMP: Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. You attack, and …

TRUMP: This was done by the military and given to me. I think we can probably, right? Uh,

STAFFER: I don’t know, we’ll, we’ll have to see. Yeah, we’ll have to try to—

TRUMP: Declassify it.

STAFFER: —figure out a—yeah.

TRUMP: See as president I could have declassified it.

STAFFER: Yeah. [Laughter]

TRUMP: Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.

Trump may continue to argue that all these references to “top secret,” “secret,” and “highly confidential” material pertain to magazine and newspaper articles. Don’t expect a jury to believe it, even if — as has been reported — investigators have not yet found the specific document in question. They found enough classified material to make the point, and juries can and often do act on circumstantial evidence and testimony like this — especially when it comes from the defendant.

If this sounds like a rehash, though, that’s because it is. The leak of the audio yesterday didn’t offer any new information we didn’t already have — except for one thing. Someone’s leaking this evidence to the media, and now the question is who.

Trump blamed Smith in his Truth Social post last night:

It’s certainly possible that it leaked from investigators, but it doesn’t seem likely. During months of investigation, the same prosecutorial team managed to keep this audio clip a secret. Even when the indictment came out, Smith’s team declined to publish the audio. Nor did it leak immediately after the Baier interview, when it would have had immediate impact. So why would they leak it now, especially since it doesn’t add much of anything to the case?

It could also have leaked from its originator. The audio comes from a meeting that Trump held with a publisher and writer who both are unnamed in the indictment. If they worked at CNN, then that explanation would make sense. It’s not clear why the originators would leak it otherwise, though.

That leaves us with a third option, which is that Trump’s team leaked it. That has been a rather common occurrence over the last few years, and it’s usually done to paint his accusers as unethical. Trump does seem to believe that the audio can be spun as exculpatory, as he argued on Truth Social last night, so perhaps he or his team decided to attack Smith in that direction. The timing works too, at least hypothetically, as Smith just delivered the first tranche of discovery materials to Trump’s legal team — and a judge put a partial gag order in place to cover it.

Was this audio part of that tranche? Yes indeed, emphasis mine:

Special counsel Jack Smith has begun producing evidence in the Mar-a-Lago documents case to Donald Trump, according to a Wednesday court filing that hints that investigators collected for the case multiple recordings of the former president – not just audio of an interview Trump gave at Bedminster for a forthcoming Mark Meadows memoir.

Prosecutors in the filing used the plural “interviews” to describe recordings of Trump – made with his consent – obtained by the special counsel that have now been turned over to his defense team. It is unclear what the additional recordings may be of or how relevant they will be to the Justice Department’s case against the former president, though the recordings include the Bedminster tape where Trump speaks about a secret military document to a writer and others, the prosecutors said in the filing.

Is it just a coincidence that a tape that had been kept secret for months suddenly leaked four days after it was handed over in discovery? Some people may believe in coincidences, but …

Also, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up as Andrew Malcolm joins me for our weekly chat! Today’s show features:

• Has the media finally turned on the Bidens? Neither Andrew Malcolm nor I think their sudden interest in reporting the facts alleged by two IRS whistleblowers is a sudden case of integrity in the MSM.
• We also discuss the strange and short-lived rebellion in Russia.
• Plus, what can we make of the new Fox News prime-time line-up?

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!