Speaker 1: All right.
So let's go to some CNN video.
CNN interviewed Trump lawyer Jim Trusty about the leaked audio recording in which Trump
is at Bedminster Golf Club, not at Mar a Lago.
It's summer of 2021, long after.
Trump has left the White House and Biden is president.
And Trump on the auto audio recording says, I have a classified document here that I can't
show you.
Proving that Trump did not declassify all of the documents that he took with him, meaning
he took classified documents to which he did not have the right.
Then we go to CNN last night.
Here is Kaitlan Collins asking Trump's lawyer if the documents were declassified, as Trump
told us they were.
Why is Trump on the recording saying, I can't show you this because it's classified?
Very straightforward and simple question.
Jim Trusty unable to answer.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Something you just said to Abby, which was you referenced the fact that Trump was still
president when he left office.
You left Washington, I think about an hour left in his presidency.
Are you saying that it was in that hour that he declassified the documents that were taken
with him?
Now, your timing is a little bit off that he he landed in Mar a Lago and was at his
residence while still president.
It was a little bit after that that Biden was sworn in.
So he had the absolute authority to take every one of those documents, any document he wants
with him.
When he left the White House, what happens throughout history, through modern history.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Now he's already he's already being deceptive.
In some hypothetical sense.
If Trump goes through the declassification process while president, he would then be
able to make the case that he can take documents.
He didn't do that.
Things are not de facto declassified because Trump thought about it or because Trump took
them.
And Trump admits on the recording that these are still classified documents, meaning he
did not declassify them.
This guy is lying and he's being deceptive.
Speaker 2: But if you take documents and archives thinks they're entitled to it, they start
negotiating.
And that's what he did.
He was telling them things like, Hey, just ask if you want anything more.
He gave them 15 boxes in January of 2022 after some back and forth.
And just to be clear, you're making the argument right now that by the time he was on the ground
in Florida after he left Washington, that that is when he declassified all of these
documents that he took with him.
No, no, no.
I'm saying the documents he brought with him are effectively declassify.
Speaker 1: Effectively is doing some heavy lifting in this sentence.
And the problem is lawyers not working for Trump say that that's not a thing and.
Speaker 2: Personalized under the Presidential Records Act.
We're talking about constitutional authority under the Constitution to declassify if he
wants to take stuff with him and say anything I take with me is declassified.
If he wants to take it up and say anything I read at night is declassified.
That was absolutely his right as president.
Speaker 1: Even if that were the case, he didn't do it and admits the document is classified
in the summer of 2021.
Speaker 2: And the first of all, the Presidential Records Act makes it clear that we don't even
care about classified information.
It is a statutory scheme.
But if this deals with presidential or personal only if this was declassified, then why are
we told that he's on this tape basically telling the people in the room that he can't share
it with them?
You are told by DOJ or FBI or whoever filtered that to you, anything they can think of to
justify.
Speaker 1: All right.
So it's all unfair.
It's all a witch hunt to justify indicting Trump.
Here's one more clip.
Here's Abby Phillip interviewing the same guy, Jim Trusty.
And it doesn't really go any better.
Speaker 2: These tapes would indicate that former President Trump knew that the documents
that he had.
Yes.
Classified?
Yes.
Does that not make his statements about blanket declassification and some statements by his
representatives?
Wouldn't that make those lies?
I'm not going to dignify the DOJ leak.
What I will tell you is that when you are.
Speaker 1: Because it's extremely inconvenient to my client.
Speaker 2: That she's addressing, you don't want to address the substance.
Well, it also be nice if you let me answer.
So let me just try to answer.
Speaker 1: Because he's not actually trying to answer.
That's the.
Speaker 2: Thing.
I am trying to be responsive, but I'm not going to bite on a leak campaign and try the
case in the media.
What I will tell you is there is no doubt that as commander in chief and when the president
left Washington, D.C., for Mar a Lago, he was actually still president when he left
for Mar a Lago with boxes of documents that other people packed for him that he.
Speaker 1: Brought, At least now he's admitting there were boxes.
Speaker 2: He was the commander in chief.
There is no doubt that he has the constitutional authority as commander in chief to declassify
It does not have to go through some sort of bureaucratic process to be declassified.
It will be very easy to simply prove that he just declassified them because even though
he doesn't have to go through a process.
Right, he does have to decide that it's been done.
Did he tell anyone?
Yes.
And can you prove it?
Sure.
But we're not doing it.
We're not going to try it.
He declassified this document that we're referring to.
We're not going to try it.
Speaker 1: All right.
So as you can see, this is a very poor appearance for Jim Trusty.
One lawyer wrote to me and said, you know, these might be TV lawyer arguments, David,
to avoid answering the question and to obfuscate.
These are not arguments any sensible lawyer would ever make in court.
So Trump's going to need something better than Jim.
Trust these arguments if he hopes to to to somehow explain this recording, if this actually
is something that leads to charges.
So, again, espionage being discussed as a possible situation for Trump, we're going
to follow it super closely.