Posted on 08/13/2022 4:54:11 AM PDT by bitt
Former president's office describe previously undeclared process that led to sensitive documents landing in Mar-O-Lago.
Donald Trump's office told Just the News on Friday that the classified materials the FBI seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate were declassified under a "standing order" while he was president that allowed him to take sensitive materials to the White House residence at night to keep working.
The official statement is likely to become the focus of the president's legal defense as the FBI and Biden Justice Department investigate whether he stole records covered under the Presidential Records Act or mishandled classified materials under the Espionage Act, allegations included in a search warrant released by a federal court in Florida on Friday.
The president's defense is rooted in the legal principal that the president and vice president are the ultimate declassifying authority of the U.S. government and through executive orders most recently issued in 2003 by George W. Bush and Barack Obama in 2009 that specifically exempt the president and vice president from having to follow the stringent declassification procedures every other federal agency and official must follow.
Trump has maintained for weeks that any documents still containing classified markings in his possession after he left office were previously declassified. On Friday night, the statement issued to Just the News explained exactly how that declassification occurred in his mind.
(Excerpt) Read more at justthenews.com ...
p
This will be a court battle.
Trump claims he issued a broad declassification for any document that left the White House.
The swamp claims Trump’s declassification is too broad and did not apply.
I can personally attest that I was given access to classified material beyond my clearance while active duty. Surprisingly, all I had to do was sign a non-disclosure DA form of some kind. Seriously. True story.
If a brigade level security major can do that, then I’m fairly certain a president can, too.
So it applies to the vice president also. Mike Pence you better take the knife off your mantle.
????
Thank you for your service.
I’m not actually buying the idea that any former president can just make a blanket statement like that which will cover classified documents after he has left office. Taking paperwork from one part of the White House to another part of the White House is one thing, it never leaves the building. Taking it out of the building after POTUS has left office seems out of bounds because he no longer has the nations secrets as part of his job. He doesn’t even have security clearance as the 2024 GOP nominee because that hasn’t happened yet.
Even Sandy Berger was only guilty of a misdemeanor and got probation for stuffing classified documents in his socks and stealing them from the national archives. He was never a President with inherent unilateral authority over classification.
BS. I have worked with Classified material for many years and the President has the ultimate authority for de-classifying Classified material. This is nothing but a fishing expedition to grab all of Trump’s Presidential documents in order to find a process crime. This is an authoritarian state going after its enemy by any means necessary.
I suspect it’s a daily occurrence. Lol.
I think the POTUS has a compelling need to save valuable time while in office by streamlining what he can and can’t move around to get the job done, but that compelling need ceases as soon as he’s out of office. We’ll see how this goes, but I’m thinking the needs of the nation to keep its secrets outweigh the desire of the ex-president to hang onto stuff he isn’t involved in anymore.
He is totally allowed to have these documents just the same as every other President. If you cannot see that this is nothing but a corrupt witch hunt then you are playing for the other side.
I haven't dug in and read the statues they're using but my understanding is they don't rely on the documents being classified. It has to do with misuse of sensitive national security information.
I imagine DOJ knows enough to stay away from the "can he declasify it?" argument.
I’m mushy middle, I’m no fan of CRT and the great proliferation of social rules bogging us down, but I also think that Trump got played by Leonard Leo and that he is a human being who could do worse than to retire as elder statesman after having single-handedly broken up our elites zombie trade policy that aided the rise if China far quicker than would have otherwise happened. If he kept documents that are still of strategic interest, he shouldn’t have.
btt
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