Trump's Bedminster club plays key role in criminal probe: report

Mar-a-Lago has made headlines in recent months as the focus of a Department of Justice investigation over Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Now Bedminster is finally getting its due.

The audio recording of a 2021 interview from the former president’s New Jersey golf club shows that investigators have had eyes on Bedminster all along, The New York Times reports.

The audio recording – first obtained by CNN – in which Trump is heard describing a plan to attack Iran as “highly confidential,” appears to undercut the former president’s previous claim that the documents in question contained just news clippings.

Alan Feuer, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan write for The Times: “That audio recording, which was published on Monday by The New York Times, was the latest piece of evidence placing Bedminster on an almost equal footing with Mar-a-Lago as a key location in the case being pursued against Mr. Trump by the special counsel Jack Smith. Previously unreported details of the investigation show that prosecutors working for Mr. Smith have subpoenaed surveillance footage from Bedminster, much like they did from Mar-a-Lago, and fought a pitched battle with Mr. Trump’s lawyers late last year over how best to search the New Jersey property.”

Investigators last summer had sought to conduct a search of the Bedminster property over concerns the former president had stashed them there, The Times reports, citing two sources briefed on the matter, but the investigators at the time didn’t have enough evidence to demonstrate probably cause to a judge.

Trump purchased the Bedminster property in 2002 and uses it as a summer getaway and season retreat, according to the report.

Read the full article here.