‘This Is An Incredible Story!’ Maggie Haberman Says ‘Very Striking’ Trump Spoke On Tape About Classified Documents

CNN analyst Maggie Haberman gushed over the report of a bombshell recording of ex-President Donald Trump discussing a classified document, calling it “very striking” that Trump would speak this way knowing he was being recorded.

CNN broke the news Wednesday afternoon that Trump was caught on tape discussing a classified document that he had taken with him when he left the White House. On the tape, Trump reportedly acknowledges he can’t show the document — which outlines a plan to invade Iran — to his visitors because of the classification attached to it.

On Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, Haberman — an influential analyst to whom Trump pays a lot of attention — gushed about the story, and made the key point that “this is not a secret recording” — Trump would have known he was being taped:

MARQUARDT: So, Maggie Haberman, does this new reporting, in your opinion, speak to Trump’s motivation in keeping classified documents and then showing them to other people?

MAGGIE HABERMAN: I don’t know if it speaks to his motivation. I think this is an incredible story. And my hat is off to CNN for getting it. What it speaks to his mindset about whether he knew that documents in his possession were classified and that what he and his aides have been claiming for is that he automatically declassified everything, that there was a standing order in the White House, therefore, none of this was improperly in his possession.

It depends on the words on the tape. We don’t know exactly what his language is. I haven’t heard it. There’s a small group of people, as I understand it, who have. If he says, you know, something that indicates that he is aware that this material is either classified or sensitive in nature or something, and that possibly he shouldn’t have it in his possession, that would undercut what their public defenses have been, and, frankly, private defenses have been for some time.

So, I think this gets to mindset as much as anything. The fact that it’s on tape is very striking. And, again, this is not a secret recording. His own aides routinely taped everything for these book interviews. They knew they were taping.

MARQUARDT: And we do know that the Justice Department recovered hundreds of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago. But as Paula just pointed out, Maggie, this meeting took place at Bedminster, at this other golf club of Trump. So, do you believe that there’s a pattern of behavior here?

HABERMAN: Well, I think this is something prosecutors have been investigating. We know that there was a huge back and forth between the Trump team and prosecutors through much of 2021, the second half — excuse me, 2022, the second half of it, about whether there would be additional searches of Trump’s properties.

And as we know, once there were these additional searches that were done basically under threat of some kind of action by DOJ, they turned up additional — the Trump team turned up additional classified material at a storage unit and in Trump’s own bedroom. So, I think that’s something you’re going to see prosecutors point to.

Watch above via CNN’s The Situation Room.

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