Federal prosecutors have former President Donald Trump "dead to rights," one lawyer said following the public release of an audio tape of Trump allegedly showing guests a top-security military document at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. Trump says the opposite.
George Conway, a vocal Trump critic who is separated from former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, lashed out at the MAGA leader in an appearance on Anderson Cooper 360 shortly after CNN's exclusive airing of the "damning" audio.
The recording, which was exclusively obtained by CNN, was first aired to the public on Cooper's show Monday evening and has been considered an integral piece of the Justice Department's case against Trump, who is facing 37 federal criminal charges over his alleged mishandled classified documents. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Newsweek reached out via email to Trump representatives for comment.
While speaking with Cooper, Conway referred to Trump as a "sociopathic criminal" and blasted the former president, saying his actions "could lead to the deaths of American servicemen."
The conservative attorney said the audio is just "another nail in the coffin" for Trump, who's campaigning for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
"How damning is this for the former president, do you think?" asked Cooper during the segment.
"Well, the special counsel already had Trump dead to rights because we knew this tape existed in some form," Conway said. "But to actually hear a former President of the United States committing a felony, probably multiple felonies, on audiotape while laughing about it is something I just—I think it's just stunning."
In the recording, Trump discusses a classified Pentagon document that reportedly shows a plan to attack Iran. The former president, speaking to at least one staffer and an author who at the time was working on a memoir of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, also speaks as if he is holding the document in front of his guests for them to view and repeatedly tells his guests to "look." The audio tape was reportedly taken in July 2021 with Trump's knowledge.
Trump railed against the audio tape on Monday night on his Truth Social platform where he alleged the DOJ and FBI "leaked and spun" the recording. The former president also claimed in the post that the audio and its transcript are an "exoneration."
"The Deranged Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ & FBI, illegally leaked and 'spun' a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe," Trump said. "This continuing Witch Hunt is another ELECTION INTERFERENCE Scam. They are cheaters and thugs!"
A spokesperson for his 2024 presidential campaign told Newsweek previously: "The audio tape provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all. The President is speaking rhetorically and also quite humorously about a very perverted individual, Anthony Weiner, who was deep inside the corrupt Clinton campaign. The media and the Trump-haters once again were all too willing to take the bait, falling for another Democrat-DOJ hoax, hook, line, and sinker."
Conway highlighted the seriousness of the document in question, referring to it as "one of the most confidential things you could possibly have which is the off-the-shelf plan to attack a potential enemy of the United States of America.
"I mean, that's very, very valuable," he continued. "Top secret information, it's something that the Iranians would probably pay 10s of billions of dollars for."
The recording is "just another thing" that's going to send Trump to prison, Conway told Cooper.
"I mean, this man has no respect for rules, no respect for the lives of other human beings, no respect for the country, no respect for the Constitution, no respect for his duties," Conway said. "He is a sociopathic criminal. And this is just another nail in the coffin."
