They have not submitted any evidence that President Trump verbally pronounced the documents declassified in the first place. That's what is so odd. If you want to make the argument that the president can declassify documents anytime he wants with just a word, that's fine. But you still have to introduce some evidence that he actually did do that.
Perhaps President Trump is making an ipso facto argument, "by the fact itself?"
I can see an argument that, if President Trump did not box up the papers himself, but that White House residence staffers boxed up his papers on January 20, 2021 away from his presence, then that fact alone says that those papers were declassified, or the White House staff would not have had access to them.
Did it happen that way? Who can say? But the act itself says something.
-PJ
“If you want to make the argument that the president can declassify documents anytime he wants with just a word, that’s fine. But you still have to introduce some evidence that he actually did do that.”
The special master is simply to give his opinion on what is declassified and what is not. Docs not classified were wrongly seized and go back to Trump. Docs he’s not sure of go on another pile. And what he thinks are still classified go on the third pile. And it’s up to the FBI to prove that the limited scope of documents are classified
Let’s say Trump has the Crossfire Hurricane documents. If he just releases them and says the FBI is corrupt, he gets arrested and tried in DC with DC courts and juries. They will claim he has no right to declassify. Those courts and court of appeals side with the FBI. The Supreme Court hears the case and gets all the political court accusations if they reverse. And in my dream world a lot of people who perpetuated this scam get arrested.
He now is in the FL district. He’s being coy about declassification because he wants the FBI to say in court they’re classified. Now he gets to prove it with a Florida jury, heard by a more sympathetic appeals court and confirmed by the Supreme Court. Now all the documents are released without any doubt of his legitimacy to do so.
That would be multiple Executive Office of the President staff members who provide eyewitness testimonies at trial - assuming it gets that far - verifying that he had declared everything being shipped to Florida was declassified.
As for signing documents, the President is only going to sign the politically important documents. Signing of a bunch of routine declassification notices doesn’t’ fall into that category. Some staff member who has been delegated that power would sign/should have signed them. If it didn’t happen before 12:00 pm on 21 January 2021, it’s a real shame but hardly treason or espionage - on anybody’s part.
People like to claim that nobody is above the law. That is simply not true. The President has the authority to pardon offenses against the United States. His authority is that great because our Founders wanted to prevent just the kind of persecution of political enemies that is taking place.