De Classifying Things News Today

and saying that he was able to declassify whatever he wants. joyce, put that -- make sense of that for us? explain that to us. >> well, id love to make sense of it, katy, but it doesnt make much in the way of sense. it is a shocker that the former president would try to distract from his own problems but invoking barack obama who by all accounts including this official one complied fully with the presidential records act. when it comes to these new suggestions that trump could have dec...

Record to some extent. he is supposed to save a lot of that. it is not at all in the classified category. which is really what this search was all about. but given trumps habits here, i think that basically any evidence of concealment is something that authorities were very much looking for when they went to actually go and search mar-a-lago, katy. >> tally, lets focus on that when ryan just flagged. any evidence of the knowing alteration or destruction or concealment of any government and or pr...

Classify information. but there is a process and the department of justice concluded that he didnt go through such a process. >> but talk about how this information is normally viewed f. youre getting top secret information, compartmented information, your the president of the united states and have the right to see any of it, what is the process of getting those documents, viewing those documents, and then returning those documents. there has got to be a log, right, that shows who is handling t...

There was top secret compartmented information that the fbi said it recovered according to the inventory list. does that concern you? >> of course it does. information is secret for a reason. now sometimes too many things are made secret. but as long as theyre secret, we ought to honor that because theyre secret on the theory they are harmful to the interest of the united states of america is disclosed. and no one is authorized to take those to their personal home or something of that nature. in...

When it comes to top secret information, compartmented information, the highest level of security that the government said it has, the most sensitive stuff, does the president need a reason to do so? >> no, i mean, it is a presidential power. ez the executive. other presidents were very cautious about this kind of thing. they didnt want to reveal sources of methods of the intelligence for instance. they didnt want to reveal to an adversary lets say what might be in the american knowledge base be...

Subpoena and we got a search warrant to get the documents and we they have them now, end of story. and it is timing. why would merrick garland seek to do it now and what was so pressing now and all of these things are contributing to a level of angst and curiosity in the public now that you let the lid off of this thing, it leads people to wonder what is next. and that is a very difficult place to be as a law enforcement officer, as a prosecutor because there are questions that you simply cant a...

Decisions here. im the one who signed for the warrant in order to be presented in front of a judge. so all of these things, i think he did in the interest of, number one, showing leadership and protecting his agents and his attorneys but number two being clear about the fact that the political sort of firestorm and conversation was not going to influence him in any undo way whether it comes to interest of justice and the pursuit. >> the law is the law. the justice department has said were not go...

Now whether the doj will look to prosecute him on that charge is a different story. i think it is important that people understand, during the course of any investigation or even the execution of a search warrant, those things are not released to the public in the manner that this has been released and one of the reasons why is because at this point in an investigation, youre going to have more questions than youre going to have answers. usually youll hear law enforcement say, we dont comment on...

Donald trumps lawyer, representing him in this right now. >> im on and i cant hear. >> he cant hear. well get that earpiece worked out. live television, folks. barbara, ill go back to you. if you were donald trumps lawyer, how would you be defending him. >> one thing that is interesting katy, and this might be the kind of argument that you make for indefensible claims but he thinks he declassified them. he cant, as you mentioned and other guests have noted, there is a process for de classifying ...