“Appearing to contradict former President Donald Trump’s primary public defense in the classified documents case, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has told special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators that he could not recall Trump ever ordering, or even discussing, declassifying broad sets of classified materials before leaving the White House, nor was he aware of any ‘standing order’ from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of materials taken out of the Oval Office,” ABC News reports.
“ABC News has also reviewed an early draft of the prologue to Meadows’ book, The Chief’s Chief, … which includes a description of Trump having a classified war plan ‘on the couch’ at his office in Bedminster, New Jersey … The reference to that document being in Trump’s possession was removed before the book was published… Meadows acknowledged to investigators that he asked that the paragraph be changed, and that it would be ‘problematic’ had Trump had such a document in his possession.
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