Donald Trump heard discussing military documents that he says are classified in leaked recording

Donald Trump can be heard discussing holding classified documents after he left office in a leaked recording that has been broadcast publicly for the first time.

The former US president refers to the papers as “highly confidential” and appears to acknowledge he could have declassified them as president but failed to do so in the recording.

The release of the audio comes as Walt Nauta, a valet for Mr Trump, is set to be arraigned on Tuesday in relation to charges that allege he helped him hide classified documents.

In the audio obtained and aired by CNN, Mr Trump can be heard saying: “These are the papers,” while referring to a secret Pentagon document on plans to attack Iran.

The recording is of a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, the broadcaster reported.

The tape’s existence was previously known about but it has not been broadcast publicly until now.

During the two-minute recording, Mr Trump can be heard shuffling papers as he talks about the contents of what he says are classified military documents.

At one point his aides joke about Hillary Clinton’s emails and the 2024 presidential hopeful is heard discussing a document contained “secret information”.

“Hillary would print that out all the time, you know. Her private emails,” Mr Trump’s staffer can be heard saying.

“No, she’d send it to Anthony Weiner,” Mr Trump responds, referring to the former Democratic congressman whose laptop revealed thousands of Mrs Clinton’s private emails during an FBI search.

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During the recording, Mr Trump makes several comments about the content of the papers and appears to be showing people in the room alleged secret documents.

“He said that I wanted to attack Iran, isn’t it amazing?” Mr Trump says as the sound of papers shuffling is picked up by the recording. “I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this – this is off the record but – they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defence Department and him.”

Mr Trump goes on to say: “This was done by the military and given to me.” He also notes that the document remained classified.

“See as president I could have declassified it,” Mr Trump adds. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

The brief audio clip concludes with Mr Trump requesting refreshments. “Bring some cokes in, please,” he says.

Mr Trump was indicted earlier this month on 37 counts relating to the alleged mishandling of classified documents held at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has claimed the investigation is a “witch-hunt”.

The recording appears to tally with the indictment, which alleges that those present at the 2021 meeting – a writer, publisher and two members of Mr Trump’s staff – were shown classified information.

In an interview with Fox News last week, Mr Trump said he did not have any classified documents with him.

“There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things,” Mr Trump told Fox News. “And it may have been held up or 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.”