Former President Donald Trump recently joined SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show for his first interview with Kelly since 2016. He appeared to get himself into some trouble when talking about the classified documents case, in which he is facing seven counts related to his retention and alleged mishandling of top secret materials via Media Ite.
It has been noted that Kelly asked Trump about a key piece of evidence cited in the indictment against him, the tape on which he appears to be waiving around a classified military attack plan for Iran.
Kelly explains that on the tape Trump can be heard saying the document is still classified and as a former president he can no longer declassify it as he’s showing the plan to someone without clearance to view it.
Kelly asked why he would show other people that document. Trump gave a lengthy answer that included, “I’m allowed to take these documents, classified or not classified.”
“These fascists and these Marxists, and these people that are dealing, and they leak, and they’re disgusting people. They’re horrible for the country. We have a deranged guy named Jack Smith, who has been overturned at the Supreme Court a number of times and he gets overturned – you know why gets overturned? Because he goes too far. They don’t even mention the Presidential Records Act,” Trump replied, adding:
“This is all about the Presidential Records Act. I’m allowed to have these documents. I’m allowed to take these documents, classified or not classified. And frankly, when I have them, they become unclassified. People think you have to go through a ritual. You don’t, at least in my opinion, you don’t. But it’s even beyond that. Because the Presidential Records Act allows you to do as president, only as president. Now, the other people that we talk about, including Biden, he wasn’t president. So what he did is a different standard. And he should have real problems. They really should be talking about that. Not about me. I did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Trump’s response quickly raised eyebrows as legal analysts and observers argued the president confessed to charges against him.
“Credit to @megynkelly for letting him confess to the crimes in the indictment. She’ll see this played at the trial by the government,” responded national security lawyer and pundit Bradley Moss.
