Reports: DOJ has recordings of Trump admitting to keeping classified documents – National & International News – THU 1Jun2023

DOJ has recordings of Trump admitting to keeping classified documents, reports say.

Senate presses ahead with debt ceiling bill in rush to beat deadline.

NATIONAL NEWS

DOJ has recordings of Trump admitting to keeping classified documents, reports say

Multiple anonymous sources have spoken to media outlets claiming that the Department of Justice has in their possession a July 2021 audio recording in which former President Trump acknowledges that he retained classified documents after leaving office. The recording is from a meeting at Trump’s Bedminster golf course in New Jersey. Present at the meeting were two people working on an autobiography for Mark Meadows (Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff) as well as other Trump aides.

According to sources, Trump told those at the meeting that he’d kept a secret Pentagon document about a potential plan to attack Iran. Trump says in the recording that he would like to share some of the information in the document, but recognizes that his ability to de-classify the document after leaving office was limited. 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley’s name also featured in the conversation. There has been a long-running, and largely one-sided, feud between Trump and Milley since 2020. Trump was reportedly furious over a New Yorker report that Milley had acted to prevent Trump launching an ill-advised attack on Iran after losing the November 2020 election. Trump claimed that the document somehow refuted that version of events.

Milley has met with the DOJ recently as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe of Trump’s handling of classified documents.

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Senate presses ahead with debt ceiling bill in rush to beat deadline

After passing the House yesterday (with more Democratic votes than Republican), the bill to raise the debt ceiling has advanced to the Senate. The closely divided body is facing a tight deadline to approve the bill and get it to Pres. Biden’s desk before June 5. The Treasury estimates that the US will start running out of money to pay its bills on that date.

Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers in both houses of Congress have expressed dissatisfaction over the bill. Republicans say that the steep budget cuts in the bill do not go far enough. Meanwhile, Democrats are angry about a provision that lessens environmental regulation of new energy projects.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says that several lawmakers want to speak and debate potential changes to the bill. However, Schumer says there’s no reason to unduly delay the bill’s passage and vowed to keep the Senate in session until it passed. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), was similarly committed to pushing the bill through with as little deliberation as possible.

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