(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) CNN was roundly roasted for its promotional hyping of leaked audio that claimed to add new details about a conversation where former president Donald Trump reportedly discussed and displayed classified documents.
The recording, which was originally referenced here nearly a month ago and has since been extensively covered by media and addressed by Trump, was touted by CNN as offering “new details from the conversation that is a critical piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over the mishandling of classified information, including a moment when Trump seems to indicate he was holding a secret Pentagon document with plans to attack Iran.”
The CNN audio purported that Trump was lamenting about his relationship with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, during an interview with an author.
“With Milley – let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. 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,” Trump said, according to the recording.
Other people in the room could be heard reacting as they apparently viewed the alleged classified documents.
“We looked at some. This was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff, pages-long,” Trump said, according to the recording. “I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know?”
The former president apparently continued to flip through more documents.
“Except it is like highly confidential,” he said, according to the recording. “Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this.”
“I was just thinking, because we were talking about it. And you know, he said, ‘he wanted to attack Iran,’” Trump said. “This was done by the military, given to me. I think we can probably, right?”
Trump then appears to again acknowledge the documents were still considered classified information, according to CNN’s recording.
“See, as president I could have declassified it,” Trump said. “Now, I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”
“Yeah,” a staffer said. “Now we have a problem.”
CNN suddenly stumbling across the leaked audio further eroded the public’s trust in both mainstream media and the Biden administration, former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, according to the Washington Examiner.
“We need confidence in our government, in our institutions. And clearly, this doesn’t instill much when this is getting leaked to the likes of CNN,” she told Hannity, noting that the DOJ and FBI have sunk to new lows of 30% public approval.
The CNN leaked audio covered in large parts ground seemingly already trampled by Fox News in an interview last week, when Trump explained the conversation in context.
“There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things,” Trump said. “I didn’t have a document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.”
CNN’s tape rehash dropped in the wake of the Biden administration’s reported efforts to use the Titan sub tragedy to sideline media attention from the president’s growing legal problems, along with a rash of conveniently-timed mainstream coverage of an alleged coup in Russia. Several whistleblower revelations that reportedly linked Biden directly to his son’s shady business dealings have also received a mainstream media blackout.
“CNN releases tape of Donald Trump admitting on hot mic to world leaders and journalists in the room ‘I sold a lot of state secrets’” cracked Human Events’ Jack Posobiec. “oh wait waitaminute.”
BREAKING: CNN has obtained a tape recording of a conversation from 2021 involving former President Trump discussing classified documentspic.twitter.com/wamRX2IZZz
— Not Jerome Powell (@alifarhat79) June 27, 2023
A Trump spokesperson derided CNN’s report, writing that “The media and the Trump-haters once again were all too willing to take the bait, falling for another Democrat-DOJ hoax, hook, line, and sinker.”
The spokesperson noted that “The audio tape provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all. The President is speaking rhetorically and also quite humorously about a very perverted individual, Anthony Weiner, who was deep inside the corrupt Clinton campaign.”
In its new coverage of the old tape, CNN reported that the audio revealed Trump saying “these are the papers” and referring to something he called “highly confidential,” which the network claimed contradicted his comments to Fox News.
Trump responded to CNN’s report with a blistering rebuke posted on Truth Social, where he reiterated his charges of election interference and accused Biden’s Justice Department of leaking the tape to CNN.
“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,” Trump wrote.
Firebrand conservative attorney and media personality Mark Levine also addressed the likelihood of government leaks designed to bolster the DOJ’s case against Trump in the classified documents prosecution.
“There must have been several scores of leaks against Trump involving testimony, documents, audio, etc., and they’re all obviously coming from the government,” Levine tweeted in response to CNN’s report.
“Trump’s lawyers need to file an immediate motion, with the long list of leaks as an exhibit, asking that the entire case be dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct and the government’s effort to influence the jury pool,” Levine advised.
“Moreover, I would insist that the court determine whether DOJ has opened investigations into these felonies. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN NOW!”
