In an interview with Newsmax, Alan Dershowitz, retired professor from Harvard University Law School, expressed the opinion that former President Donald Trump’s statements in the leaked audio recording regarding classified documents may have been incorrect.
Dershowitz said on “John Bachman Now” that based on the audio that’s been released, “I don’t think that he can plausibly claim that what he was showing them was newspapers and magazines. It seems clear from the context he was showing them something that he believed was probably still classified.”
Dershowitz noted that Trump “may have been wrong about that, there are several ways in which documents become declassified. One is the president can do it, he says he didn’t do that. But there is another way and I think that’s the way the Trump defense team is going to be pushing this. They can say that the content of this material, the Milley plan relating to Iran had already been made public.”
He continued, “If, in fact, the content appeared publicly in any newspapers and magazines, that automatically declassifies it whether or not the person showing it to them believed it was classified.”
Dershowitz also said that the audio was “of course … an illegal leak,” although he did admit “it’s conceivable that it could have been leaked by the people who actually made the recording, people who are on Trump’s staff. That would not be illegal.”
He added: “It’s also possible, though unlikely, that somebody on Trump’s legal defense team without Trump’s permission may have leaked that. That would raise legal questions, ethical questions, and lawyer-client questions as well. But CNN’s not going to tell us who leaked it to them.”
{Matzav.com}
With Trump you never know. Could be he was lying then. Could be he is lying now. Could be both. Unless there is some testimony about the actual content of the papers there would still be reasonable doubt. This all makes little difference anyway because he’s not being charged for this incident. It is only being used as proof of his total disregard for classified documents. Trump can still always claim that he knew he couldn’t show them but didn’t know he couldn’t HAVE them. He is being charged for HAVING other documents. Not showing these particular ones.
I don’t see how they can prove anything with just this audio. you would need a document that matches to what Trump is describing. Or the people interviewing Trump have to come forward collaborating the government’s position. Otherwise, Trump says it was newspaper articles. They say it was documents. How do they prove their case???