Former President Donald Trump admitted in a July 2021 conversation to being in possession of a “highly confidential” Pentagon document, according to multiple media outlets reporting Friday morning on a partial transcript from the meeting.

The recorded conversation at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, between the former president and two people working on an autobiography for Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was previously reported on, with media organizations basing their reporting at the time on descriptions from sources. Federal prosecutors obtained the audio recording, which has come up in grand jury testimony, according to reports.

On Friday morning, CNN, the New York Times and ABC News reported on the transcript from the conversation, which appears to undercut Trump’s defense that he did not have any classified documents after his presidency. Trump has argued the records were automatically declassified when he removed them from the White House just before his term ended. In September, he told Fox News a president can declassify files “even by thinking about it” and there “doesn’t have to be a process.”

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump said in the 2021 conversation, according to the transcript.

A federal grand jury has indicted Trump, who is running for president again in 2024, on seven charges related to his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The charges include willful retention of national defense information — a crime under the Espionage Act — obstruction, false statements and conspiracy, James Trusty, a lawyer for the former president, told CNN. Trump has been summoned to appear Tuesday in federal court in Miami, he and Trusty said.

The Justice Department has not commented on the indictment.

In the transcript, Trump is discussing a New Yorker article in which Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said he was concerned Trump might order a military strike against Iran in his final days as president. Milley said he instructed the Joint Chiefs to ensure Trump did not issue any illegal orders. 

Upset about the article, Trump said in the recorded conversation a document he was holding related to attacking Iran was created by the Defense Department and Milley, according to the transcript, which also suggests he showed the document to others in the room.

"Well, with Milley — uh, let me see that, I'll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn't that amazing?” the transcript said. “I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this — this is off the record, but — they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. 

“We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff — pages long, look. Wait a minute, let’s see here. I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is, like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. This was done by the military and given to me.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an email from Spectrum News requesting comment about the transcript. 

In a video posted to his Truth Social platform on Thursday night, Trump said the federal indictment is “election interference at the highest level. There’s never been anything like what’s happened. I’m an innocent man.”

According to multiple reports, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Trump’s lawyers to hand over the document Trump discussed in the recording, but his legal team informed the Justice Department it was unable to locate any such records in his possession.