Trump’s declassification claim may offer limited defense
by Rebecca Beitsch - 08/16/22 5:20 PM ET
Donald Trump’s claim he declassified the suite of documents seized by authorities after they searched his Florida home may provide only a limited defense for the former president, if the Justice Department decides to pursue what would be a historic case.
Trump, like any U.S. president, would have wide-ranging powers to declassify documents — but not in sweeping fashion and not without igniting a chain of events that would document the request, according to legal experts interviewed by The Hill.
The broad power also likely wouldn’t permit Trump to store tranches of presidential records in his post-presidential home.
Trump has argued the documents removed from his home were “all declassified.” He later elaborated in a statement to Fox News that he had “a standing order” to declassify any documents.
But experts say there should be traces of such a decision.
Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a nonprofit law firm specializing in national security law, said a presidential decision to classify material reverberates through an intelligence apparatus that carefully tracks documents and must then recategorize them appropriately.
“When you declassify a document, it’s declassified everywhere,” he said. “The CIA’s copy is declassified, the NSA’s copy of declassified, the National Security Council’s copy is declassified.”
“And so when you declassify a document, even with a wave of your hand, you have to say that to someone, so that they mark it or propagate a memo out to people that this document is now declassified,” added McClanahan. “And they would do that if there was literally anyone in the room when he said, ‘I am declassifying this document,’ they would have made a note of that.”
McClanahan noted that no one in Trump’s orbit has yet pointed to anything in writing from Trump.
“An oral order will not suffice unless somebody can prove that it existed,” he said.
more
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3604437-trumps-declassification-claim-may-offer-limited-defense/
