Veteran Reporter Points Out Key Passage in Mark Meadows Biography Undercutting Trump’s Latest Docs Defense

It may not have been a best-seller, but a passage from the now-infamous book about former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows might debunk one of former President Donald Trump’s claims that he was only waving around “newspaper stories” in a newly leaked audio recording.

The reason a recording exists of Trump allegedly discussing classified documents with people without clearance is because a ghostwriter was working with Meadows on his memoir. That book, The Chief’s Chief, includes a prologue by the ghostwriter wherein he discusses following Meadows around while he worked with Trump. Veteran journalist Robert Mackey posted the excerpt on Twitter and pointed out:

Seems overlooked that Mark Meadows’s memoir undercuts Trump’s claim that he showed the book’s ghostwriter and publisher articles, not a war plan.

After the new audio leaked, Trump claimed that he was waving around papers that were not classified military plans but “magazines, newspapers, plans of buildings. I have plans of buildings, you know, plans. I had plans of a golf course.”

But the excerpt Mackey posted, from the prologue of The Chief’s Chief, indicates that the papers were exactly what Trump is describing in the audio — a plan from General Mark Milley to attack Iran:

The president recalls a four-page report typed up by Mark Milley himself. It contained the general’s own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency.

Here’s the excerpt in context:

Here is what Trump said in the audio that seem to coincide with the ghostwriter’s account:

Staffer: That was your coup, you know, against you. Like when Milley is talking about, “Oh you were going to try to do a coup.” No, they were trying to do that before you even were sworn in. Trying to overthrow your election.

Trump: Well, with Milley, let me see that. I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look.

[Sounds of paper shuffling]

Trump: This was him. They presented me this. This is off the record, but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.

Writer: Wow.

Trump: We looked at some. This was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff, pages long, look. Wait a minute, let’s see here.

Unidentified speaker: Oh my gosh.

Staffer: Yeah.

Trump: I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know.

Staffer: Mm-hm.

Trump: Except it is, like, highly confidential, secret… This is secret information. Look, look at this. You attack and…

…

Trump: By the way, isn’t that incredible?

Staffer: Yeah.

Trump: I was just thinking, because we were talking about it, and you know, he said, “He wanted to attack Iran, and what…” These are the papers.

Staffer: You did?

Trump: This was done by the military and given to me. Uh, I think we can probably, right?

Staffer: I don’t know, we’ll have to see. Yeah, we’ll have to try to…

Trump: Declassify it.

Staffer: …figure out a, yeah.

Trump: See, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.

Staffer: Yeah, now we have a problem [laughing].

Trump: Isn’t that interesting?

Staffer: Yeah.

Trump: It’s so cool. I mean, it’s so, look, her and I, and you probably almost didn’t believe me, but now you believe me.

Writer: No, I believed you.

Trump: It’s incredible, right?

Writer: No, they never met a war they didn’t want.

Mackey also included additional statements from the recording that were not included in the clip obtained by CNN but were in the indictment against Trump:

‘Look what I found, this was [Senior Military Official’s] plan of attack, read it…’

And of course the partial audio of this conversation leaked to the media (possibly by or on behalf of Trump) conveniently does not include this direct quote from Trump, included in the indictment: “Look what I found, this was [Milley’s] plan of attack, read it.” pic.twitter.com/V1Sg9MWrFR

— Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) June 28, 2023

Trump has pleaded not guilty on all 37 federal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents.

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