During a portion of an interview with the Fox News Channel aired on Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump responded to claims in the federal indictment of him that he showed a secret document to other people by stating that there wasn’t any document “These were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles.” And that while he couldn’t declassify things while he was out of office, “There was nothing to declassify.”
Trump stated, [relevant remarks begin around 6:10] “It wasn’t a document. I had lots of paper. I had copies of newspaper articles. I had copies of magazines.”
He added, “When I said that I couldn’t declassify it now, that’s because I wasn’t President. I never made any bones about that. When I’m not President, I can’t declassify. … But that wasn’t a document. Bret, 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 it 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.”
Earlier in the interview, he stated that he didn’t have any Iran war plans, “that I know of. But everything was declassified.”
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