Trump blames his own ‘bravado’ for lying about classified documents

Former President Donald Trump is defending himself against newly released audio evidence that appears to confirm some of the allegations made against him in a federal indictment by blaming his own “bravado.”

On June 9, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed 37 felony charges against Trump for improperly handling federal classified documents, lying to law enforcement officers, and obstruction of justice. The indictment cited two examples of Trump showing classified documents to others in 2021, noting:

In July 2021, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey (“The Bedminster Club”), during an audio-recorded meeting with a writer, a publisher, and two members of his staff, none of whom possessed a security clearance, TRUMP showed and described a plan of attack that TRUMP said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense and a senior military official. TRUMP told the individuals that the plan was “highly confidential” and “secret.” TRUMP also said, “as president I could have declassified it,” and, “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

Trump initially claimed to be “totally innocent.” In an interview with Fox News on June 19, he denied having referred to any classified documents.

CNN released the recording of the conversation at the Bedminster club on Monday, confirming his comments and including audio of him shuffling papers.

On Tuesday, Trump told ABC News and Semafor that the documents he claimed on the recording were confidential memos were really just unrelated papers.

“If you want to know the truth, it was bravado. I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about, but I have no documents. I didn’t have any documents,” he claimed. “I just held up a whole pile of — my desk is loaded up with papers. I have papers from 25 different things.”

In August 2016, then-candidate Trump repeatedly vowed to be totally truthful with the American people. “In this journey, I will never lie to you. I will never tell you something I do not believe. I will never put anyone’s interests ahead of yours,” he said at an Aug. 18 rally. “And, I will never, ever stop fighting for you.”

This is not the first time Trump has excused prior statements that provide evidence of wrongdoing by minimizing his own trustworthiness.

In 2016, after the release of an unaired “Access Hollywood” tape revealed that years earlier he had bragged of serial sexual assaults against women, Trump said, “This was locker-room banter” and explicitly denied ever actually kissing or groping women without consent.

He repeatedly belittled the dangers of the coronavirus in early 2020, but told journalist Bob Woodward that he had intentionally misled the public, saying, “I wanted to always play it down.”

Asked by Jonathan Karl of ABC News in November 2018 about his campaign promise never to lie, Trump answered: “Well, I try. I mean, I do try. I think you try, too. You say things about me that are not necessarily correct. I do try, and I always want to tell the truth. When I can, I tell the truth. I mean sometimes it turns out to be where something happens that’s different or there’s a change. But I always like to be truthful.”

Over the course of his four years in the White House, the Washington Post documented more than 30,000 misleading and false claims made by Trump.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.