I have always thought that Mukasey would have been a good choice to adjudicate many parts of the current situation, and would have been a far better choice than Mueller as independent counsel. And one thing that he says that I have not heard anyone else say, except for me, is that when the director of the FBI has a conversation with the president, or when the Secretary of State writes a memo to someone working for her in another country, that message is classified when it is written. It is classified before the pen lifts off the paper. It does not have to go to some third party to decide whether that message is classified or not. It is in a default condition of being classified at the moment that it is written.
classified at the moment that it is written.