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Donald Trump’s defense that he was just holding up “newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles” always came across rather far-fetched, but an unhelpful excerpt from a Trump staffer’s book could materially weaken it further. Veteran reporter Robert Mackey tweeted out a critical observation from Mark Meadows’s memoir, The Chief’s Chief. Mackey noted that in the memoir, the ghostwriter types, “The president recalls a four-page report typed up by Mark Milley himself. It contained the general’s own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops.”
This sounds remarkably like what Trump discusses in the recording mentioned in the indictment released by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The indictment cites Trump’s conversation with the ghost writer as follows:
Upon meeting the writer, publisher, and his two staff members, Trump stated, “Look what I found, this was [the Senior Military Official’s] plan of attack. Read it, and just show… it’s interesting.” Later in the interview, Trump engaged in the following exchange: “Well, with [the Senior Military Official] — uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack [Country A]. Isn’t it amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me with this — this is off the record, but — they presented me with this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.”
If the facts check out, then this leaves Trump with less of a defense than he had. Like with so many of Trump’s problems, this one was self-inflicted. The New York Times points out that during his interview with Bret Baier, Trump said, “I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a document from Milley.” Makes you wonder how the ghostwriter found out about it, then.
All this also demonstrates why Trump’s refusal to keep quiet, like most defendants are urged to in criminal cases, is jeopardizing his ability to mount a convincing defense when the documents case reaches the courtroom.
