‘It Wasn’t a Document!’ Watch How Trump Explained ‘Highly Confidential’ Doc to Bret Baier Just One Week Before Leaked Audio

Recently published audio of former President Donald Trump appears to directly contradict what he said on Fox News about his alleged possession and brazen showing off of classified documents after his time in the White House.

CNN obtained an audio recording that appears to reveal what Trump showing what he called a “highly classified” and “secret” document at his Bedminster club in an audio recording obtained by CNN.   The audio bolsters details in the unsealed indictment against the former president by Special Counsel Jack Smith, but just a week ago, Trump entirely dismissed what the audio reveals in an interview with Bret Baier.

The Fox News anchor confronted former President Donald Trump about one of the critical aspects of the 37-criminal-count federal indictment against him during a sit-down interview broadcast on Monday of last week.

Baier asked the former president to explain the audio tape on which he allegedly says he had secret documents that he did not declassify in his possession and waived them around in front of individuals without proper security clearance.

Baier noted that the indictment alleges that at “Bedminster on July 21st, 2021 after you’re no longer president, you were recorded saying that you had a document detailing a planned attack on another country that was prepared by the U.S. military for you when you were president. The Iran attack plan.”

“You remember that?” Baier asked.

“It wasn’t a document! I had lots of paper. I had copies of newspaper articles. I had copies of magazines,” Trump said, denying the contents of the tape as Baier read him the exact quote from the indictment.

“This is specifically a quote, you’re quoted on the recording saying the document was ‘secret,’ adding that you could have declassified it while you were president, but, quote, ‘Now I can’t you know, this is still secret, highly confidential.’ And the indictment cites the recording and the testimony from people in the room saying you showed it to people there that day,” Baier clarified.

“It was just the opposite,” Trump shot back.

“You say on tape you can’t declassify. So why have it?” Baier pushed.

“When I said that, I couldn’t declassify it now because I wasn’t president, I never made any bones about that. When I’m not president, I can’t declassify,” Trump replied.

Bret shot back noting again what Trump said on the tape, to which Trump replied, “No, no.”

“Bret, there was no document,” Trump repeated, adding:

That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or made up, 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.

“I’m just saying what the indictment says. According to the recording and the people in the room,” Baier clarified.

Trump then pivoted to attacking the prosecutors, calling them “very dishonest people, they’re thugs. They’re thugs.”

The audio released one week later by CNN, appears to tell a different story than the one that Trump shared with Baier, however.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.

Additional reporting by Alex Griffing.