president trump was heard on a recording acknowledging that he held on to a classified pentagon document. it was about a potential attack on iran. the justice department issue ed a subpoena, but trump s lawyers have not found the document in question. senior legal affairs correspondent paula reid has the latest on the search for classified papers that were mishandled. why did you take classified documents concerning general milley? reporter: cnn exclusively reporting donald trump served with a subpoena in mid-march. seeking any records related to the same u.s. military document he talks about on tape. everything i did was right. reporter: special counsel jack smith, attorney general merrick largarland picked to oversee the investigation into trump trying to track down any additional classified materials still in trump s possession. the former president s attorneys turned over some material in response to the justice
humbles front runners. i was thinking back to 2015, scott walker, the wisconsin governor, it was front runner at this very event. he fizzled in the months to come. it is unlikely donald trump will fizzle this year but will any of the alternatives? nikki haley, we will see her here tomorrow in a town hall. she is making her case to voters for an economic message and a lot of these things. a lot of these candidates have uphill challenges for the next few months. no question about it. investigations into former president donald trump making headlines on at least two fronts. one is on the classified pentagon document on iran that trump is heard on tape saying he has in his possession. his attorneys now say they can t find after federal investigators issued a subpoena for its return. the other development we re
watching is in georgia. trump s efforts to overturn the election there. jeremy has more on that. we ve learned two developments in investigation into former president trump. his handling of classified documents, sources tell cnn that trump s lawyers were unable to locate a classified document about plans of a possible strike on iran. a document where trump was recorded on tape saying he had in his possession in 2021. the special counsel subpoenas trump for that document not long after one of his aides in that 2021 meeting appeared before the grand jury. well, trump s lawyers provided some documents in response to that subpoena issued in march, they could not locate the classified pentagon document that trump was referencing on tape. it is unclear whether the document might have been already returned to the government, if it is still missing, or whether it was even in trump s possession in 2021.
super interesting. wow, thank you, christine. yawn. new overnight, former president trump responded for the first time to exclusive cnn reporting about a 2021 recording in which he acknowledges holding on to a classified pentagon document. trump now claiming he knows nothing about it. cnn s paula reed, part of the team that broke this story, is with us now. so paula, where does that leave things? reporter: well, this is the first time that former president has responded to our reporting here. and i want to remind folks before we listen to exactly what he said, in this recording, our sources say he was aware that he was being taped. this was back in the summer of 2021, in the room, where not only some of his aides but also peek working on a book for his former chief of staff, mark meadows. during this time, trump wanted all conversations with writers, with reporters, to be recorded. and still, we hear according to our sores on the tape, him discussing the possession of a
rustling paper. maybe he s waving something. it s unclear whether he s waving the document itself or something else for theatrical effect. for investigators, trump suggests he would like to share this document, but there are limits on his ability to declassify materials now that he is out of office, he says. that s what s particularly important to prosecutors that he is acknowledging he has limits about what he can declassify, and he s talking about this as though it is a still-classified document. exactly. and he and his attorneys have put out these various contradicting explanations for how he did not intentionally withhold classified documents. so, anything that left the oval office, automatically declassified. he said he could declassify things with his mind. then his attorney sent a letter to congress suggesting the only reason he had classified materials in his administration was because at the end of his administration, it was so