If we are talking about the indictment, at least one charge seems to be related to him sharing classified information with people who did not have the right or need to know it after he was no longer president and could not declassify the document in question. In tha audio he acknowledges he could no longer declassify it. There is no question he could have done so as president, but that is not what is being alleged. If there was no record of him declassifying the document while president and the document still contained classification marks, he will have a hard time proving the document was declassified when he shared it (assuming the event took place as the transcript appears to show).
As Paul Sperry has reported Jack Smith doesn’t even have the document so there in fact is no way to determine whether or not it is in fact a classified document or him just waving around an envelope and saying that was secret
So unless someone can say with their eyes they saw the document and this is what’s in it. They don’t have much of a case.
was DJT’s statement under oath?
You said: If we are talking about the indictment, at least one charge seems to be related to him sharing classified information with people who did not have the right or need to know it after he was no longer president and could not declassify the document in question.
To me, it seems that this article is saying that the act of taking it as President was sufficient to consider it declassified from that point forward.
The question then becomes does the government have the right to ask for it back? If the answer is yes but the former President declines to return it claiming past precedent, is that criminal? I think many people believe it is not criminal (the Presidential Records Act has no criminal charges attached to it), but that it is being levied arbitrarily against President Trump for political reasons.
You said: If there was no record of him declassifying the document while president and the document still contained classification marks, he will have a hard time proving the document was declassified when he shared it...
As I said up-thread:
I'm arguing that if the President uses his plenary powers to declassify something "on the spot," then how would there be a record of it unless this was done post hoc?
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.
If the President did this on his last day in office and then took the documents with him, then how would there be a record of it?
Constitutionally, processes for declassification are for lower-level staffers who are delegated the classification powers from the President. The Supremacy clause in the Constitution says that there is no "process" that binds the President on the matter of declassification.
Where it gets murky is when the "process" goes after a President once he leaves office. At that point, he no longer has plenary powers, but it seems to me that the process is being applied ex post facto to President Trump to make criminal what was not criminal when the act occurred. What are your thoughts on this?
-PJ