It was nearly three weeks ago when The New York Times first reported on the latest in a series of controversies surrounding Donald Trump being careless with sensitive national security secrets. According to the initial round of reporting, the former president shared “sensitive details” about American nuclear submarines with an Australian billionaire named Anthony Pratt during a conversation at Mar-a-Lago, where Pratt is a member.
The Aussie went on to share the revelations about the submarines “with several others,” the article added, and all of this has proven interesting to special counsel Jack Smith’s office.
Trump used his social media platform to describe the allegations as “false and ridiculous,” though his denials were difficult to accept at face value. After all, the Republican has a track record of divulging sensitive information about submarines and nuclear secrets, as well as a history of being careless at his glorified country club.
In other words, the claims from early October checked a variety of familiar boxes.
This week, the Times advanced the story in ways that brought the larger controversy into sharp relief.
Mr. Pratt, the chairman of a multinational paper and packaging company and one of Australia’s richest men, had already paid to join Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. He had also spent top dollar to ring in the new year there while rubbing elbows with the president. And, eager to behold a Trump re-election celebration at the club, he had offered to reach into his pocket once again as Election Day [2020] approached.
According to the reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, Pratt told an associate that he expected the then-American president to hold an election party at Mar-a-Lago, which led the Australian to reserve “as many rooms as available.” The efforts, he added, would be “good for business.”
In another reported instance, Pratt spent $1 million for tickets to a Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve gala — “voluntarily paying the club a huge markup for tickets that actually cost $50,000 or less.”
In other words, if the information is correct, Pratt hoped to advance his private-sector interests by currying favor with the sitting American president. The Australian couldn’t simply put money in Trump’s pocket, so he did the next best thing: Pratt used one of the Republican’s private businesses as a possible vehicle to buy access and influence.
He soon after compared Trump’s business practices to being “like the mafia.” What’s more, as part of the process, Pratt allegedly received information from Trump that the American wasn’t supposed to share. The Times’ report went on to reference private recordings in which Pratt reflected on his interactions with the former president. On the recordings, Mr. Pratt recounts how Mr. Trump shared with him in December 2019 what he describes as elements of a conversation the president had with Iraq’s leader right after a U.S. military strike there aimed at Iranian-backed forces. Days later, a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad would kill Iran’s top security and intelligence commander. At one point, Mr. Pratt said, Mr. Trump discussed the phone call he had with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine earlier that year that had helped lead to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “That was nothing compared to what I usually do,” Mr. Trump said, in Mr. Pratt’s recounting.
Oh. So the original reporting from earlier this month pointed to Trump allegedly sharing sensitive national security information with an Australian billionaire. This additional reporting points to Trump allegedly sharing even more sensitive national security information with an Australian billionaire — who was throwing money around in the hopes of strengthening his connections to the Republican. For his part, Trump again denied the allegations, calling the story “fake news,” and describing Pratt as “a red haired weirdo.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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