Correct me if I am wrong. Is there any standard procedure for a President to de classify secret information. The Washington Post has not said there is. In the past anything a president took was never questioned on its classification basis, both Republican and Democrat.
If there is no official procedure, there is no crime. Both sides agree that the President has the absolute authority to declassify anything he wants. Trump would have been a fool not to do this if there was an official procedure. Trump is not a fool.
Vice President Biden took classified information and did not have this power of declassification. That was a crime.
He doesn’t need a standing order. If he says that they’re declassified, then they’re declassified. Period.
“When Donald Trump became
president in 2017, a SCIF was set
up at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida”
A secure area, where a document
once classified, cannot leave.
Rigid protocol issues followed when
a cleared indivual wishes to
view those documents. And is
subject to search before
entering, and a search upon
exiting. No recording devices,
not even a pencil, is allowed
in the SCIF.
Trump, even if he wanted to,
couldn’t just waltz in and select
any document he wants to view.
Specific documents are tagged
with file numbers, and a list is
generated. The request to view
is decided before one can enter
the SCIF using a specific file
number, and the person viewing
has “a right to know”.
It’s my guess that the RATS are
questioning Trumps handling of
the documents in his SCIF at the
time of transition.
Trump declassified documents
that were deemed no longer a
threat to national security
(at his discretion). It’s up
to the incoming administration
to see that classified (from the list)
documents are transfered
to a SCIF of the new presidents’
choice of location.
This could have been a set-up
from the get-go, as the new
regime just may have left some
of the documents still classified
in Trumps’ SCIF, just waiting
for the time to spring the trap.