Getting to the point: Read Article II, Section 1, sentence 1 of the U.S. Constitution. Case closed.
No, not case closed. Like it or not, politically motivated or not, the charges relate to actions taken after he was president. The mere fact that he was president and chief executive does not mean anything he took with him after he left office was automatically declassified. It’s different to argue that he could legally have them since he retained his security clearance and under the PRA he is to have access to his presidential records after leaving office. But that is not the same as them being declassified. He could have declassified before he left office, but he is on tape talking to an aide about getting the documents in question declassified, and how he could no longer do it because he wasn’t president.
Ping to CA Conservative
Not sure of what you're saying.
Yep, the President IS the Executive Branch. All executive authority vests through him. Article II also makes clear that any officers of executive departments are subordinate to the President. I read that to clearly indicate that the President has sole authority to decide what the Executive Branch exists of and how it is structured. In fact, I think that clearly indicates that the President has the authority to create or abolish federal executive departments at will (though their funding could only be authorized by Congress). Yet the prevailing opinion is that various statutes limit the ability of the President to reorganize federal departments, an opinion for which I can find ZERO constitutional support.
If all executive authority resides in the President, then there is also no way that a bunch of pipsqueaks who are subordinate to him within the executive can impose procedural requirements for declassifying classified information upon him. All executive authority being vested in the President means ALL authority, which has to include any dispensation at will of executive-level secrets.