washington federal prosecutors have a 2021 audio recording of former us president donald trump acknowledging he kept a classified pentagon document about a possible attack on iran after leaving the white house cnn reported on wednesdaycnn did not listen to the recording but cited unidentified multiple sources describing it the recording shows trump who is seeking the 2024 republican presidential nomination understood he retained classified material after he left the white house in 2021 according to the tv channeltrumps remarks indicated he would like to share the information but was aware of the limitations on his ability to declassify documents after leaving office two sources told cnn trump has denied wrongdoing a trump representative would not comment on the report of the recording or on the specific remarks attributed to trump and called the investigation politically motivated leaks from radical partisans behind this political persecution are designed to inflame tensions and continue the medias harassment of president trump and his supporters trump spokesperson steven cheung said on wednesday peter carr the spokesperson for special counsel jack smiths office at the justice department declined to commentthe us department of justice is investigating whether trump broke the law by retaining us government records some marked as top secret after leaving office in january 2021 in august the department disclosed that it was investigating trump for removing white house records because it believed he illegally held documents including some involving intelligencegathering and clandestine human sources among americas most closely held secretssmiths probe includes whether trump or his associates obstructed the justice departments probe into his retention of thousands of government records about 300 of which were marked classified the special counsel is also investigating efforts to overturn trumps 2020 election loss that culminated in the deadly january 6 2021 attack on the us capitol