CNN analyst Maggie Haberman said a bombshell recording of ex-President Donald Trump discussing a classified document is “the most damning” evidence she’s seen against Trump to date.

CNN broke the news Wednesday afternoon that Trump was caught on tape discussing a classified document that he had taken with him when he left the White House — and the Justice Department has that tape in its possession.

On the tape, Trump reportedly acknowledges he can’t show the document — which outlines a plan to invade Iran — to his visitors because of the classification attached to it.

On Thursday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, Haberman went into detail about the significance of the tape, calling it the “most damning” evidence she’s heard of — and she is very well-versed:

ERICA HILL: Joining us now, CNN political analyst and senior political correspondent at The New York Times, Maggie Haberman. Great to have you with us. So the way this has been detailed to our team reporters when they broke this about the recording, there are sort of three parts to it, right? The fact that there was this document reportedly that there were conversations about it and that the former president acknowledged in those moments he wanted to share it. But there were those limitations. Really gets to a number of the, quote unquote, explanations that we’ve heard from the former president. And these don’t square.

MAGGIE HABERMAN: No, look, there’s been a lot of news breaks in this documents investigation, various news outlets. We’ve had some, you guys have had some. This one is is very meaningful and is a big deal for the reason you just said. There. It gets to number one documents that were in his possession, documents that he had with him at Bedminster, which is a different location than Mar a Lago, where the search had been focused.

But more specifically, whatever that document actually was, because Trump is not the most reliable narrator about what that document was. And, you know, we know and you guys have reported Mark Milley did not actually produce this document. What matters is Trump, most, is Trump saying, again, I haven’t heard the tape. No one has yet. But our reporting is also that Trump says something about the limits of his classification abilities. You know, he expresses some regret about not having declassified this particular thing while he was president.

That undermines the excuse that they have made over and over again that he had this ability, that he automatically declassified everything. I saw Jim Trusty on this network last night, Trump’s lawyer, saying exactly that, and then specifically not answering whether this document was declassified.

POPPY HARLOW: Deflecting.

MAGGIE HABERMAN: And yeah, and so I just I don’t see.

POPPY HARLOW: And Kaitlan’s question, by the way, of is it now with the National Archives or not?

MAGGIE HABERMAN: That’s right. Yeah. And there’s I understand why he does want to answer those questions. But then don’t go on TV to say, I’m not going to sit here and not answer these questions, you know, other than making the client happy. This, this tape is, multiple sources have described it as very problematic for Trump. Now, again, you know, this investigation is still ongoing. We don’t know where it’s going to end up.

But of all of the evidence that we know of, this is the most damning I’ve heard of. And it reminds us there’s so much we don’t know about what prosecutors have.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.

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