(TheRedWire.com) – Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows could have potentially destroyed former President Donald Trump’s defense in the case related to his mishandling of classified material after leaving the White House in 2021. According to recent reports, Meadows had supposedly informed prosecutors that he did not remember Trump declassifying all classified documents before he left the White House.
The ABC News report noted that Meadows had allegedly told the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith that he did not know of Trump ever talking about declassifying sensitive material before leaving office. He added that he did not know of a “standing order” placed by Trump that would have provided authorization for documents to be automatically declassified after they were taken from the White House.
Trump is facing 40 charges in this federal case and has pleaded not guilty to all of them. He is facing charges that he had intentionally retained classified documents after his time in office ended and that he had tried to obstruct federal investigators from retrieving the documents. The former President has denied any wrongdoings in this case and has often attacked the FBI over their raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate last August.
In September 2022, following the raid, Trump alleged that the U.S. President could declassify documents just by “thinking about it.” However, following the release of an audio tape of Trump from June, it appears unlikely that all the documents were declassified. Trump refers to a “highly confidential” document that he still possesses relating to a possible attack on Iran.
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