Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, has informed special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators that he has no recollection of Trump issuing directives or engaging in discussions regarding the declassification of extensive sets of classified documents prior to his departure from the White House. This is in stark contrast to the previous public defense offered by former President Donald Trump.
In addition, Meadows asserts that he is unaware of any permanent directive from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of documents removed from the Oval Office. These details were provided to ABC News by sources with direct knowledge of the situation.
Since August of the previous year, when the FBI confiscated more than 100 classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago home, Trump has consistently maintained that he authorized the declassification of all of the aforementioned information prior to the end of his presidency.
The ex-president is presently facing a total of 40 separate criminal charges presented by Democrats in relation to his retention of these documents. Joe Biden also possessed classified materials in his residence, but he has not been charged.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has strenuously denied any involvement in unlawful activities.
ABC News has conducted a thorough analysis of an early draft of the introduction to Meadows’ forthcoming book, “The Chief’s Chief,” which examines his tenure as chief of staff during the final months of the Trump administration.
This section depicts Trump “on the couch” in his Bedminster, New Jersey office with a classified military strategy document. The meeting was attended by Meadows’ ghostwriter and publicist, but Meadows was conspicuously absent. Before the book was published, the reference to the document’s location in Trump’s office was removed.
Multiple sources have informed ABC News that Meadows confessed to investigators that he requested the alteration of the paragraph and that he was aware of the potential complications if Trump had possessed such a document. Meadows reportedly informed special counsel investigators that he did not discuss the aforementioned changes with Trump, according to sources cited by ABC News.
Meadows reportedly told investigators that he did not participate in loading the crates that Trump transported to Mar-a-Lago following his departure from the White House, according to sources.
This statement effectively establishes a significant degree of separation between Meadows and the removal of sensitive data-containing federal records. According to the sources, Meadows told investigators that he did not personally observe President Trump packing crates, nor was he aware of any instance in which Trump removed federal records, particularly classified ones.
Meadows asserts that in close proximity to the National Archives’ initial request for the repatriation of the official documents transported to Mar-a-Lago in 2021, he proposed to Trump the idea of personally examining the former president’s containers in order to retrieve the official records and facilitate their return to Washington. Meadows reportedly notified investigators that President Trump turned down the offer.
After the FBI conducted a search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Trump’s staff issued a statement to the media. The statement claimed that during Trump’s presidency, he instituted a directive that deemed all documents removed from the Oval Office and transported to the White House residence automatically declassified. According to statements he made on social media, President Trump claimed that all Mar-a-Lago records had been declassified.
Meadows informed investigators, based on information provided by individuals with knowledge of the situation, that he had been exposed to the term “standing order” during his time at the White House, but not in the context of the declassification procedure.
In a statement sent to ABC News, a spokeswoman for Trump asserted that the Justice Department selectively disseminated incomplete information with the intent of influencing the outcome of the 2024 election.
The claim asserted that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the special counsel “have resorted to selectively leaking incomplete information that lacks proper context because they know they can’t win inside a courtroom, so now they are trying to deceive Americans through the court of public opinion,” adding, “This witch-hunt is nothing more than a desperate attempt to interfere in the 2024 election as President Trump dominates the polls and is the only person who can defeat him.”
Meadows reported to investigators that he witnessed President Trump declassify documents during his time as chief of staff, according to several individuals with knowledge of the situation. This instance involved a binder containing materials related to the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.
The aforementioned executive order, which was issued during the final days of President Trump’s presidency, has been a source of contention. The Justice Department has been reluctant to release the allegedly relevant documents.
Meadows has refrained from making public statements regarding the investigation into classified documents and Smith’s concurrent investigation into Trump and his associates’ efforts to invalidate the 2020 election result. According to sources, this has led to speculation within Trump’s inner circle regarding the nature of Meadows’ disclosures to investigators in that particular investigation.
Meadows, along with Trump and seventeen other individuals, was indicted last week as part of an independent investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis into allegations of election interference in Georgia.
According to sources, Smith’s team has also conducted interviews with additional witnesses regarding Meadows’ book’s initial omission of references to the war plan document.