News/Commentary

Fox News calls out Trump’s statement after evidence is leaked

June 28, 2023 | | Print Article

Fox News is calling out former President Donald Trump for his defense of how he handled classified documents, even as evidence is leaked to the press in the unprecedented legal case brought against him.

One major piece of evidence is a recently released audio clip from July 2021 in which he purportedly showed his aides some documents that he claimed in the clip were “secret.”

“This was done by the military and given to me. See as president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret,” he said in the clip as he allegedly showed the documents to the aides/staffers.

Listen:

During a Fox News interview last week, recorded before the audio clip was released, Trump claimed he’d never shared any “secret” documents with his staffers, period.

“There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn’t have a document, per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles,” he told the network.

But following CNN’s publication of the audio clip, Trump appeared to change his story multiple times.

First, he posted a Truth Social on Monday contending the audio clip exonerated him.

“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. This continuing Witch Hunt is another ELECTION INTERFERENCE Scam. They are cheaters and thugs!” he wrote.

Also on Monday, he told Fox News that this whole affair is “just another hoax.”

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“We did absolutely nothing wrong. This is just another hoax. It’s called, I would say, election interference more than anything else. It’s a disgrace that they can do it. Next question. But everything was fine. We did nothing wrong, and everybody knows it,” he said.

But then on Tuesday, he commented again.

Speaking with Semafor, this time he claimed he’d just been bragging/talking junk in the audio clip released by CNN.

“I would say it was bravado, if you want to know the truth. It was bravado. I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had 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. … I have no regrets. I didn’t have a classified document. There was no classified document on my desk,” he added.

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According to Semafor, this appears to be a new legal strategy: “The latest comments suggested a new potential legal argument from the former president: That he was overselling the material he was showing.”

But is it a good strategy? Not according to national security attorney Bradley Moss, who cited a couple of reasons why this strategy is doomed to failure.

“One, they’re not charging him with retaining that document. Two, the relevance of the comments in the audio are they speak to Trump’s intent and awareness of the limitations on his ability to have and share classified records,” he told Semafor.

“And three, I have no reason to believe Smith would have included this issue without getting clarifying testimony from the various witnesses,” he added.

Some social media critics also appear to believe this new legal strategy is a dud:

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Others say otherwise and argue that it’s all a hoax, just as Trump has said. They also note that the leaking of the audio tape to CNN is technically a crime.

Look:

Fox News also took note of Trump’s changing statements.

During Tuesday’s episode of Fox News’s “America Reports,” the network’s hosts played Trump’s contradictory statements back-to-back.

Listen:

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Vivek Saxena
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