The President decides what is classified, not some affirmative action administrative state parasitic bureaucrat.
ARTICLE II
SECTION 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.
Department of the Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988)
The President, after all, is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” U.S.Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant. See Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 367 U. S. 890 (1961). This Court has recognized the Government’s “compelling interest” in withholding national security information from unauthorized persons in the course of executive business. Snepp v. United States, 444 U. S. 507, 444 U. S. 509, n. 3 (1980). See also United States v. Robel, 389 U. S. 258, 389 U. S. 267 (1967); United States v. Reynolds, 345 U. S. 1, 345 U. S. 10 (1953); Totten v. United States, 92 U. S. 105, 92 U. S. 106 (1876). The authority to protect such information falls on the President as head of the Executive Branch and as Commander in Chief.
Since World War I, the Executive Branch has engaged in efforts to protect national security information by means of a classification system graded according to sensitivity. See Note, Developments in the Law — The National Security Interest and Civil Liberties, 85 Harv.L.Rev. 1130, 1193-1194 (1972). After World War II, certain civilian agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Atomic Energy Commission, were entrusted with gathering, protecting, or creating information bearing on national security. Presidents, in a series of Executive Orders, have sought to protect sensitive information and to ensure its proper classification throughout the Executive Branch by delegating this responsibility to the heads of agencies. See Exec.Order No. 10290, 3 CFR 789 (1949-1953 Comp.); Exec.Order No. 10501, 3 CFR 979 (1949-1953 Comp.); Exec.Order No. 11652, 3 CFR 678 (1971-1975 Comp.); Exec.Order No. 12065, 3 CFR 190 (1979); Exec.Order No. 12356, § 4.1(a), 3 CFR 174 (1983).
Pursuant to these directives, departments and agencies of the Government classify jobs in three categories: critical sensitive, noncritical sensitive, and nonsensitive. Different types and levels of clearance are required, depending upon the position sought. A Government appointment is expressly made subject to a background investigation that varies according to the degree of adverse effect the applicant could have on the national security. See Exec.Order No. 10450, § 3, 3 CFR 937 (1949-1953 Comp.).
It should be obvious that no one has a “right” to a security clearance. The grant of a clearance requires an affirmative act of discretion on the part of the granting official. The general standard is that a clearance may be granted only when “clearly consistent with the interests of the national security.” See, e.g., Exec.Order No. 10450, §§ 2 and 7, 3 CFR 936, 938 (1949-1953 Comp.); 10 CFR § 710.10(a) (1987) (Department of Energy); 32 CFR § 156.3(a) (1987) (Department of Defense). A clearance does not equate with passing judgment upon an individual’s character. Instead, it is only an attempt to predict his possible future behavior and to assess whether, under compulsion of circumstances or for other reasons, he might compromise sensitive information. It may be based, to be sure, upon past or present conduct, but it also may be based upon concerns completely unrelated to conduct,
such as having close relatives residing in a country hostile to the United States. “[T]o be denied [clearance] on unspecified grounds in no way implies disloyalty or any other repugnant characteristic.” Molerio v. FBI, 242 U.S.App.D.C. 137, 146, 749 F.2d 815, 824 (1984). The attempt to define not only the individual’s future actions but those of outside and unknown influences renders the “grant or denial of security clearances . . . an inexact science at best.” Adams v. Laird, 136 U.S.App.D.C. 388, 397, 420 F.2d 230, 239 (1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1039 (1970).
Predictive judgment of this kind must be made by those with the necessary expertise in protecting classified information. For “reasons . . . too obvious to call for enlarged discussion,” CIA v. Sims, 471 U. S. 159, 471 U. S. 170 (1985), the protection of classified information must be committed to the broad discretion of the agency responsible, and this must include broad discretion to determine who may have access to it. Certainly, it is not reasonably possible for an outside nonexpert body to review the substance of such a judgment and to decide whether the agency should have been able to make the necessary affirmative prediction with confidence. Nor can such a body determine what constitutes an acceptable margin of error in assessing the potential risk. The Court accordingly has acknowledged that, with respect to employees in sensitive positions,
“there is a reasonable basis for the view that an agency head who must bear the responsibility for the protection of classified information committed to his custody should have the final say in deciding whether to repose his trust in an employee who has access to such information.”
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/484/518/
This would only matter until noon Jan 20,2021. I heard it’s alleged he was talking to Mark Meadows in one of these two situations. Mark was his WH chief of staff. It’s all murky and muddled. Let’s not forget Trump declassified the Russia Hoax documents in one or more speeches.
What far left PolitiFact is admitting here is that the president can declassify anything he wants, anytime he wants and there is no set procedure he has to follow in order to do so.
So anything President Trump decided to declassify and take with him was declassified because he, as president, had that power.
It's comments like this that have me scratching my head.
It supposes that there is some ritual hand-waving that signifies an overt act of declassifying, that if not done before sharing a secret means that the secret was not declassified before being shared by the President.
That is nonsensical thinking. The sharing itself is the act of either declassifying or granting the classified status to the receiver of the information, if you're the President.
That's what it means to be a plenary power.
-PJ