Donald Trump Is Digging a Deeper Hole for Himself—Defense Lawyers

Donald Trump is at risk of hindering his case by continuing to publicly discuss the classified documents investigation as further evidence that alleges the former president was aware he had retained secret papers after he left the White House has emerged, according to legal experts.

Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann was one of those who suggested that Trump is "digging himself deeper and deeper" after appearing to make contradictory statements about recent audio footage first obtained by CNN.

The audio reveals Trump discussing how he was in possession of "highly confidential" Pentagon papers during a meeting at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, in July 2021, and that he no longer had the authority to declassify it.

"This was done by the military and given to me," Trump said. "See as president I could have declassified. Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret."

The remarks are believed to be the same ones which were previously cited in the federal indictment against Trump, which was unsealed prior to the former president pleading not guilty to 37 charges in a Miami, Florida, court as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation.

Since the audio first emerged, Trump has dismissed its significance, describing the investigation as a "witch hunt" on Truth Social. The frontrunner to clinch the GOP presidential nomination in 2024 also accused Smith's probe of being "another ELECTION INTERFERENCE Scam."

Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Trump denied that he was holding a secret Pentagon paper discussing a potential attack on Iran during the Bedminster meeting involving people working on the memoir of his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

The former president said that the rustling papers which can be heard on the tape were mostly "newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans" which he kept on his desk.

In an interview with Semafor and ABC News, Trump again denied that he was showing classified documents to people at the July 2021 meeting, and that his words were merely "bravado."

"I was talking and just holding up papers and talking about them, but I had no documents. I didn't have any documents," Trump said.

When asked what the "plans" were which he referenced in his previous Fox News interview, the former president said he was referring to "building plans" and "plans of a golf course" rather than a potential military option.

Discussing the "building plans" remarks, Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor at the Justice Department, tweeted: "A witness who changes his story every time he opens his mouth doesn't usually win credibility points with a jury."

Norm Eisen, an attorney and former special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump's first impeachment trial, said the former president is at risk of making his defense more unreliable to potential jurors each time he openly discusses the classified documents case.

"In over 30 years of representing defendants, the first thing I told my clients was 'from this moment forward, no more talking.' Not even to other people about the case, much less publicly," Eisen told CNN.

"Every time he offers a different and frequently inconsistent explanation or justification, he just makes his situation in front of the jury that is going to have this documents case worse."

A spokesperson for Trump's campaign previously told Newsweek that the audio recording "provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all."

"The media and the Trump-haters once again were all too willing to take the bait, falling for another Democrat-DOJ hoax, hook, line, and sinker," the spokesperson added.

Trump's office has been contacted for further comment via email.