[WMarshal]

The President's authority to declassify is absolute as Commander-In-Chief. While the bureaucracy is bound by Executive Orders from past administrations, it is only because the current Executive has permitted the EO remain in force on the Federal Register, a sitting President's freedom of action is not bound by it. This is because the former Executive that issued that EO is no longer in office. This means that a direct order from a President to the bureaucracy supersedes any EO. As of right now there is no law passed by Congressional and signed by a President that restricts the President's authority to declassify, there are only EOs from Bush and Obama doing which only subordinates are to follow unless told otherwise.

If President Trump orders the declassification of any document it gets released unredacted and there's no recourse.

[dontreadthis]

that is what I thought until I read this article

[gibsonguy]

Just do it damn it.

[Alberta's Child]

I'm surprised the CTH folks didn't do a little more research or put some more imagination into this. Two points worth considering here:

1. The easiest way to get around the DOJ stonewall is to cut the DOJ out of the process. This is easier than a lot of people realize. The author is so hung up on the language of an Executive Order that he overlooks a more important point: Most of the senior posts in the DOJ -- including that of Deputy AG Rosenstein -- were never established by Congress. They were create through Executive Orders or internal DOJ protocols, and can be eliminated or changed just as easily. President Trump could issue an EO tomorrow with a formal determination that the FBI has been compromised in national security matters and therefore cannot be trusted to review classification or declassification procedures.

2. There's an easy way to not only compel the DOJ to issue the fully unredacted FISA documents, but to make them WANT to do it: Release a version of the documents with made-up, damaging names in them that will destroy the credibility of the DOJ. Put Barack Obama's name in there. Better yet, put a fake name in there and claim it was an Obama alias. Put Chelsea Clinton's name in there as someone who was working as a CIA operative used to get FISA warrants against Trump campaign members. Maybe the best idea of all: List Vladimir Putin as a CIA asset who helped the Obama DOJ spy on the Trump campaign. The DOJ will fall all over themselves to released the real documents just to prove that the fake ones are fake.