document, that would be the height of recklessness and irresponsibility and gravely damaging to u.s. national security interests, and i think everybody should be outraged, if that is what occurred. if that is what occurred though, you and i have struggled for the last five years to figure out where the checks and balances have been in this administration, and what we did learn is there were people in the intelligence infrastructure, in the defense department, who were whistle-blowers, who did say enough is enough, and this is dangerous. i would assume this would be a trigger, right? this that happened, would we know? would we know if donald trump had declassified information that by being declassified would have posed a national security risk to america? would we ever find out that s true? who knows what documents he might have taken out of the white house, and clearly there were some, that s why the fbi and the d.o.j. are going after this. but there is supposed be a record of ever
appalling but they have done so far. therefore, i do hope there is going to be at least some transparency into just how sensitive the material is without giving away any, any content of what is in those documents. again, this argument that we are hearing from some quarters already, whatever was he is was declassified. you can invent, that we can t just say, oh that pile that you got classified, i took care of that. i ve been hearing this, the usual practice, and every president that i worked for, has called the practice of you go back to the agency that originally classified a document, or a program. and you seek their concurrence, and make sure that you do not do any a thing averted, or intentional damage national security by declassifying or documents. and then a president can make a decision. but for him to just say, arbitrarily, and you know laterally, these are declassified, these are any kind of nuclear documents, that would be the height of recklessness, irresponsibility,
circles tonight that the information that was sought, and or, recovered was the information that trump had declassified. that we would have to find out whether he did that while he was president, because the former president cannot take documents and decide to declassify them. if that were true, there would be some evidence of that somewhere, right? there would be some people trail, it would be accessible to you or me, but to people who make determinations about the control of classified information. that can exist. he can t just declassify information in the past. the way this works in the government is the sitting president has the authority, has the ultimate authority, on classification. and can make a decision to declassify documents, national security documents, that he or she sees fit. so any declassification that trump would ve made what would have to have happened while he was president, once he leaves office, he obviously loses authority of the power. offi there was reporti
information. it doesn t even have to be classified information, it doesn t matter of donald trump declassify that information. as long as it reports to the national defense which, nuclear, weapon information absolutely would qualify for. it s a crime to mishandle this. it s punishable for up to ten years in prison. it s a serious development. i wanted to go back to what you, said there s no explanation to this. i ve spoken to many people in government, you know, doesn t you everyone who works in government, knows this, you can t take, anything you can t ever it s all government property. anything that happened during the time you are in government, it s government property, can t take it. but i ve been people wondering, and i m one of them, could these be pictures of boxes of pictures or notes or things that are an important? but what s cia director brendan told me earlier is, no, there is no possibility that nuclear information or secrets at the highest level could inadvertently
got classified, i took care of that. i ve been hearing this, the usual practice, and every president that i worked for, has called the practice of you go back to the agency that originally classified a document, or a program. and you seek their concurrence, and make sure that you do not do any a thing averted, or intentional damage national security by declassifying or documents. and then a president can make a decision. but for him to just say, arbitrarily, and unilaterally, these are declassified, if these are any kind of nuclear documents, that would be the height of recklessness, irresponsibility, and would be gravely, gravely damaging, u.s. national security interest. and i think everybody should be outraged, if that is what occurred. if that is what occurred though, you and i have struggled for the last five years to figure out where the checks and balances have been in this administration. and what we did learn is that there were people and the intelligence infrastructure, a