Newsweek is reporting that a bombshell tape that was recently released to the public seems to show former President Donald Trump actually admitting that he possessed “highly confidential” documents. Unfortunately, there’s a chance that the audio clip may never be played in court.

CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” aired the brief, two-minute recording on Monday, and in it, Trump can be heard discussing keeping national security he hadn’t declassified.

The recording is allegedly a crucial piece of evidence in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment of the former president, who has been charged with 37 felony counts stemming from his mishandling of confidential records. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The audio is vitally important to the prosecutor’s case against Trump, but the jury may never have the chance to hear it.

The tape is actually admissible, noted former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani in an interview with Newsweek. The evidence is admissible as long as it’s relevant, authentic, and doesn’t violate the Rules of Evidence or the Constitution.

But the potential problem is this: The publication of the audio could give Trump a strategy to have it excluded from the trial, which is set to begin in August.

Andrew Weissman, a former Assistant United States Attorney told Newsweek that there are two rules Trump’s legal team may well use to further their argument: rules 404b and 403. Rule 404b maintains that evidence of other crimes or wrongs aren’t admissible to prove a person’s character, and under rule 403, evidence can be excluded if its value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.

“The government has the better of the 404b argument which allows evidence of other crimes to prove motive, intent, opportunity, and lack of mistake,” Weissman told Newsweek. “The government should prevail on rule 403 which requires inclusion unless the unfair prejudice substantially outweighs the probative value.”

This may well give prosecutors the upper hand if Trump does move to get the tape thrown out, but Weissmann said that Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee overseeing the case will have “more wiggle room” to side with Trump under rule 403.

Ugh.

Cannon has shown Trump favor in the past during Smith’s investigation by granting him a special master to review the documents. That decision was reversed by a conservative appeals court and there have been calls to recuse herself from the case.

And it seems she’s already swung into action — by denying the government’s request to keep a list of witnesses secret. That means some or possibly even the entire list of 84 witnesses that Trump is barred from discussing the case with could very well be made public in the future.

The audio clip reveals some dicey comments from Trump. He’s heard saying, “These are the papers,” while mentioning something he called “highly confidential.”

“This was done by the military and given to me,” Trump is heard saying at one point. “See, as president, I could have declassified it. Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

Another point about the audio clip is that it contradicts statements Trump made to Fox News last week, in which he denied ever showing secret documents to the people at the Bedminster meeting, saying he only showed “newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles.”

“There was no document,” Trump said.

And as you might expect, the ex-president turned surly after the tape was released. He accused Smith of collaborating with the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to leak and spin the tape.

“The Deranged Special Prosecutor, Jack Smith, working in conjunction with the DOJ & FBI, illegally leaked and ‘spun’ a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration, rather than what they would have you believe,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Undoubtedly Trump knows his followers will swallow this unquestioningly and perhaps he deludedly sees himself as the hero of this sad situation. After all, we’ve all heard him say presidents can declassify documents just by thinking about it.  Who knows what else he believes?