Recording of Trump Discussing Classified Docs Was Part of Feud Over Iran With Top General

The FBI raided former US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last August on suspicions he still possessed hundreds of missing documents from his time in the White House. In plain storage boxes, agents found hundreds of files marked classified, which Trump has claimed he declassified. Now, he faces 37 charges over the seized files.

A key piece of evidence in the Justice Department’s case against Trump is a recording in which he discusses an alleged plan for strikes against Iran in an effort to score a political point against a top US general who criticized him. In the audio, Trump suggests he is holding a classified file.

‘You’re Gonna Have a F*cking War’

The recording dates to July 2021, when The New Yorker, a prominent US magazine published a scorching interview with Gen. Mark A. Milley, who has been Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff since his 2018 appointment by Trump.

Since Trump’s term expired in January 2021, Milley has been revealed as a sharp critic of Trump who disagreed with many of his policy decisions both foreign and domestic, and who decided to “fight from the inside” against a president he saw as “doing great and irreparable harm” to the nation.

In the interview, Milley described how he opposed Trump’s efforts to launch a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Under his presidency, US-Iran relations crumbled from the detente reached by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, with the 2015 nuclear deal. Trump accused Iran of secretly violating the deal, pursuing a nuclear weapon, and of sponsoring a vast network of militant and terrorist forces across the region, initiating a “maximum pressure” campaign that included returning economy-crushing sanctions and assassinating Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a national hero of the anti-Daesh* war.

“If you do this, you’re gonna have a f*cking war,” Milley was quoted as telling Trump in early 2021, after Trump proposed strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, which the country insists is solely for civilian purposes.

Milley has repeatedly told journalists that he feared Trump would attempt some kind of move to remain in power after it became clear he had lost the November 2020 election, which Trump has maintained was stolen from him via massive voter fraud by the Democrats.

‘This Was Him’

Following the article’s publication, Trump brought up Milley’s claims in a conversation with a group of people at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, that included two people working on the autobiography of Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Trump’s former communications specialist, Margo Martin, and several other former aides.

“Well, with Milley – uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t that amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him,” Trump says, according to a transcript published by US media. “They presented me this – this is off the record, but – they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some. This was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him.”

“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump also says at one point, according to the transcript. “This was done by the military and given to me.”

He was reportedly waving a document around while saying those words, although it’s unclear if it was the Iran document in question. According to reports, prosecutors have also not yet determined which Iran strike document Trump was referring to. However, Sputnik reported at the time that a photo of a scattering of classified files found at Trump’s estate by FBI agents included one dated from the day after Trump pulled the US out of the nuclear deal with Iran.

Close-up of a classified file found by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago, bearing the date "Wednesday May 9, 2018.

© US Department of Justice

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump also said during the conversation, according to the transcript.

Scoring Political Points

According to analysts who spoke with US media, Trump might have kept some of the files around after leaving office in order to use them for just such a retort. Even during his administration, Trump’s cabinet and staff were revolving doors as figures passed into and out of his confidence, with many becoming strong critics of his administration afterward, including Milley but also his former national security adviser, John Bolton, and his former defense secretary, James Mattis.

“That would be a possible explanation for why he might hold onto documents he shouldn’t hold onto,” Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University who is reportedly close to Milley, told a US media publication on Tuesday. “And it sounds like in this case, it fits that pattern.”

“Trump and Milley had a particularly fractious relationship, as stormy as any in modern times,” Feaver said. “It probably stung former President Trump that a leader of an institution that the public held in high esteem … was describing him in adverse terms.”

However, an anonymous US official told the same publication that neither Milley or any other chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “does not feud with a president or a former president of the United States.”

Mar-a-Lago Raid Brings Federal Charges

The documents in question were seized by the FBI in a raid on Mar-a-Lago in early August 2022, which followed months of efforts to convince Trump to return a slew of missing documents voluntarily. While the National Archives secured a return of a large portion of the missing files, FBI agents still found hundreds of documents at the West Palm Beach estate, including hundreds with various degrees of classification markings.

Last week, the DOJ announced a stunning 37 charges against Trump, including for mishandling files, obstruction of justice, and most notably, violations of the 1917 Espionage Act. If convicted on all counts, the 76-year-old Trump could be confined to federal prison on a 400-year-long sentence.

Trump has denied all the charges, claiming he declassified all the files in question before leaving office and has called the prosecution effort a politically-motivated “witch hunt.” He has demanded similar treatment for US President Joe Biden, who has also been found in possession of classified files dating to his time as US vice president under Obama, from 2009 to 2017.

*Daesh, also called ISIS/ISIL/IS/The Islamic State, is a terrorist group banned by many nations.