Stephanie Grisham, former communications director and press secretary for then-President Donald Trump, revealed on Saturday that she has seen Trump showing classified documents to people at his Palm Beach resort.
“I watched him show documents to people at Mar-a-Lago on the dining room patio,” Grisham told MSNBC. “He has no respect for classified information. Never did… to be showing [classified documents] to people who haven’t gone through the extreme vetting that you go through to get a clearance, it’s you know, it’s a disservice to the country, but it also puts people in danger potentially.”
Grisham’s comments come as special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment revealed that the former President was recorded saying he knew he had classified documents within the boxes he took with him after leaving the White House. The recording also indicated he discussed sensitive documents with people who didn’t have security clearance. Smith’s indictment included a partial transcript of the recording but the audio in question was recently obtained by CNN.
The audio recording comes from a July 2021 interview Trump gave at his resort for people working on the memoir of Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Smith indictment alleges that those in attendance – a writer, publisher and two of Trump’s staff members – were shown classified information about a plan of attack on Iran.
“Secret. This is secret information,” Trump says in the audio.
“See, as president I could have declassified it,” he continues. “Now I can’t. But this is classified.”
Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 37 federal counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents kept at his Florida resort.
