Page 2 - Blanket Declassification News Today

possible obstruction. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, august 29th. its pretty much the end of summer. there is new reaction this morning after a heavily redacted copy of the fbi affidavit used to justify the search of former president donald trumps mar-a-lago home was unsealed on friday. the 36-page affidavit removed details of the federal governments efforts to recover classified documents, including top secret information that trump is alleged to have illeg...

mid-terms. that trump leads the gop and his extreme supporters are essentially poisonous for the country. watch this. >> donald trump and the maga republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. maga republicans do not respect the constitution. maga forces are determined to take this country backwards. the maga republicans believe for them to succeed, everyone else has to fail. maga republicans look at americans and see carnage and darkness and d...

investigators saying this -- left unchecked, the doj will impugn, leak and publicize selective aspects of their investigation. one of trumps attorneys on fox news last night. >> they dont understand. something could be marked top secret, could be marked classified. the presidential records act, he would have said this is declassified. it doesnt get a new marking all the time. hes left the office. it is a complete public spectacle. >> we should note nowhere does it mention the idea of h...

lets start with the twice-impeached pathologically duplicitous former president on the truth social platform that his passports were seized by the fbi. theres one caveat to that, nbc has not independently claimed if it is true and it could be a significant detail in whats become a stream of revelations. "the washington post" out with new details on the early stages of the probe when officials at the national archives suggested that trump had documents in his possession even after they ...

three federal crimes that the doj is looking into including violation of the act. >> the raid on president trumps palm beach club after months of talks with lawyers broke down. and the 11 that molly mentioned. to your sets labeled top secret. three sets secret documents, one set ts-sci, top secret, the most concerning some say, griff, because its some of the highest classification levels departmentalizing for people that dont know and the fbi were looking for evidence of contraband, an...

Their own internal rules in doing this, and ultimately, what needs to be fixed is the general system of declassification. what we need is more attention to the process of transition. there was no science to the transition when president trump left, people hurrying around. >> that being said, i think its contradictory to say we didnt know what was in the boxes when trump knew what was in the box. the other part of this is were talking about a conversation that happened at the bedminster club. so ...

You cannot just wave that wand and declassify documents en masse, even if you are president of the united states. weve interviewed dozens and dozens of people who are familiar with the process that even a president of the united states has to go through. he has to let someone know and memorialize it, that he intends to do that. >> because, of course, the documents exist, not just in his possession, but they exist in the federal bureaucracy. >> exactly. >> if theyve been declassified, you would t...

President trump knew that the documents that he had were classified. does that not make his statements about blanket declassification and some statements by his representatives, wouldnt that make those lies? >> im not going dignify the doj leak. what i will tell you is this. >> i mean it does sound like you dont want to address the substance. >> well, it would be nice if you let me answer. i am trying to be responsive. but im not going to bite on a leak campaign and try the case in the media. wh...

You the authority as the president to do it. so if somebody walks in and says pardon jack johnson, he was treated horribly by racists, you can pardon him without the application process. same thing goes with declassification. you dont have to go through a process. >> im not disputing that. but like with the pardon process you would need to tell someone in the bureaucracy that youve done it. >> right. >> so who did he tell? >> we are not trying our case leak by leak. >> so let me ask you this. yo...

Moment. what was the reaction? >> i guess but i tend to be a little dramatic. he didnt just say it once, thats what was so important. he hammered that point home several different times. what he was trying to say is, listen, the former president brought this case and hes trying to say that he is entitled to get these documents back to see these documents. and a judge said, okay, well, im going to start with the presumption, theyre marked classified. im going to go with that unless you can provid...