Mar-a-Lago member and Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, who former President Donald Trump has slammed as a “red haired weirdo” has disclosed that the latter shared details of private calls with the leaders of Ukraine and Iraq during his presidency.
These revelations are based on private recordings of Pratt, a key prosecution witness in Trump’s classified documents case. The reports, originating from The New York Times and “60 Minutes Australia,” provide unprecedented insights into Pratt’s candid conversations with Trump, further intensifying allegations that Trump oversaw the sharing of sensitive government information.
In these tapes, Pratt claims that Trump divulged confidential information about his phone calls with global leaders while in office. Additionally, Pratt offers candid critiques of Trump’s personal ethics.
Pratt is currently a witness on special counsel Jack Smith’s list for the upcoming trial, scheduled for May, in which Trump is charged with mishandling national security materials by keeping dozens of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Trump has pleaded not guilty to these charges. The case revolves around concerns regarding Trump’s approach to handling state secrets.
Previous reports by ABC News had already suggested that Trump shared potentially sensitive information with Pratt regarding U.S. nuclear submarines. However, the recent revelations extend the knowledge about Pratt’s recollection of their conversations to include foreign policy matters.
Pratt described a conversation where Trump informed him of his actions in Iraq: “It hadn’t even been on the news yet, and he said, ‘I just bombed Iraq today.'” Pratt continued, recollecting Trump’s description of a December 2019 call with Iraqi President Barham Salih: “The president of Iraq called me up and said, ‘You just leveled my city. … I said to him, ‘OK, what are you going to do about it?'”
The recordings also indicate that Trump discussed his September 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the call that led to Trump’s first impeachment. During that conversation, Trump pressured Zelensky to initiate unfounded corruption investigations into Joe Biden to aid his 2020 election campaign.
In the tapes, Trump is heard saying, “That was nothing compared to what I usually do. That’s nothing compared to what we usually talk about.”
In response to these revelations, Trump emphasized Pratt’s nationality, describing him as “from a friendly country in Australia, one of our great allies.” However, Trump did not specifically address the content of the conversations described in the tapes. A spokesperson for Trump stated that the tapes “lack proper context.”
As these latest disclosures surface, they could potentially be used as evidence by Smith’s prosecutors to demonstrate that Trump repeatedly shared sensitive government information with individuals who were not authorized to receive it, including political donors and well-connected businessmen in his inner circle. It remains unclear whether prosecutors had prior knowledge of the tapes that were recently made public.
These recordings also offer insights into Pratt’s candid opinions about Trump’s behavior. In one tape, Pratt suggests that Trump “says outrageous things nonstop” and likens his business practices to “the mafia.” Pratt goes on to say, “He knows exactly what to say – and what not to say – so that he avoids jail. But gets so close to it that it looks to everyone like he’s breaking the law.”
Georgia Gilholy is a journalist based in the United Kingdom who has been published in Newsweek, The Times of Israel, and the Spectator. Gilholy writes about international politics, culture, and education.
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