Trump claims he didn’t show off secret Iran attack plan, says he actually rustled ‘newspaper articles’ on tape

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said Monday he never showed off a classified US military plan to attack Iran — saying “there wasn’t a document” despite his tape-recorded claim to have such a plan during a feud with Gen. Mark Milley.

“There’s no document there. Those were newspaper articles. They were copies of articles and magazines. There was no document there,” Trump, 77, told Brett Baier of Fox News in an interview, pushing back on a key facet of the federal criminal case against him.

“That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things — and it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document,” Trump also said.

“I didn’t have a document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a document from Milley,” said the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner, contradicting his own on-tape remarks.

“Milley, frankly, was incompetent. The last one I’d want to attack with as my leader would be Milley, that I can tell you.”

Trump was recorded in July 2021 — about six months after leaving the White House — telling his former chief of staff Mark Meadows’ aides that he had an Iran attack plan written by Milley, chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Trump was clashing with Milley, who had reportedly expressed concern that Trump would attack Iran in an effort to cling to office — apparently angering Trump, who routinely praised himself for not starting new wars.

Trump reportedly rustled papers in the audio recording with the Meadows aides before telling the group that he couldn’t show them his proof that Milley — not he — wanted to invade Iran because it was still classified.

“Well, with [Milley] — uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example,” the former reality TV star said, according to the federal criminal indictment against him unveiled last week.

“He said that I wanted to attack [Iran]. Isn’t it amazing?” Trump said.

“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 Defense Department and him.”

“This totally wins my case, you know,” Trump said of the supposed document, according to the indictment against him.

“Except it is, like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. You attack … See, as president I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

Trump faces 31 counts of unlawful retention of national security information, one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, one count of withholding a document or record, one count of corruptly concealing a document or record, one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation, one count of scheming to conceal a document or record and one count of making false statements.

Trump aide Walt Nauta was indicted as a co-conspirator for allegedly helping Trump conceal documents.

The ex-president told Baier that he only held on to the documents, rather than surrender them immediately to the National Archives, because he hadn’t found the time to sort through them and “get all my personal things out.”

“We were in discussion with NARA about giving them back, and then all of a sudden we got raided,” Trump said, referring to the FBI’s Aug. 8, 2022, raid on his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Trump said he’s not sure if each of the 31 classified documents he’s accused of unlawfully possessing were actually in the cache seized by authorities.

“I don’t know what they took. They could be stuffing it,” Trump claimed, shortly before contending he had “zero” concern about the outcome of the case.

Trump was indicted by special counsel Jack Smith, whom Trump has criticized as “deranged” and attacked over the fact that Smith’s wife was a producer on a Michelle Obama documentary.

Trump is the first former president to face federal charges.

In April, he became the first former president to face any criminal charges through an indictment under a novel legal theory by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg related to alleged 2016 hush-money payments.

President Biden also is under investigation, by special counsel Robert Hur, for mishandling classified records.

Documents from Biden’s vice presidency and Senate years were found in his former personal office in Washington and at his Delaware home, including next to his Corvette in his garage.