Page 12 - Declassification Authority News Today

Mind. the law allows very broad -- perhaps even broader than we like -- but the reality is very broad declassification authority. >> miles, that doesnt make sense. how can any president say, poof, youre declassified and never fill out any paperwork and not tell anybody that. >> i think were going to have a national commission on this after the fact because both sides are going to be upset depending on the outcome of this case. but ive got to side with ellie here. i think its egregious if donald ...

Other civilians should be held the basic argument at the end of the day, you know what? if the president does it, its not illegal, especially if donald trump does it. >> i do want to talk about that because the process of declassification. is it what basically former trump is saying, which is you can wave a magic wand if youre the president and go, poof, youre declassified. is that how it works? >> constitutionally, yes, okay? the declassification authority rests with the chief executive. thats ...

But explain to us how it would work. can a president wave a magic wand or declassified something in his head without telling anybody? >> we dont have a lot of court cases on this but i believe it was the second circuit that did rule a president cant just say its declassified and it is declassified without some process to inform people. president trump cant just say everything i had declassified in the residence. if theyre not marked declassified and other documents with the same information aren...

There has been added lots of debate over this freight what i your reaction to that statement in the characterization of the presidents ultimate authority t decide they are declassified fo it can get thats almost an ope and shut case. at the attorney generals purpose was to exert transparency, i will give him that. if his purpose was to strength, it fell flat big-time pair to how can you possibly run a case against the one official in our government who has full classification and declassificatio...

The fbi believes it has not gross negligence, but an intentional act by the former presidentme and that goes to ths defense. now, theres a lot thatde we hae to learn.n. you know, if he was declassifying material as weve beeneria told in the final days his administration, there is obviously a ripe opportunity for mistakes to be made by him, by his staff, by othersy. usually when you declassify a document, the markings are actually scratched out. theres a line drawnwn through them. so theres p phy...

Know which ones they are. if they have had other reporting or had viewed them at another time as was reported i think in may, and they are no longer part of the records that were taken during this search. they could conclude that they were destroyed. they could conclude that they were moved to another location. we dont know. and i think thats important. what triggered the search warrant in the time leading up to from the meeting in may to now, what was the urgency associated with it. also, to th...

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 declassified ...

Authority to declassify these documents and that he did so. that would be an issue of first impression for any court to consider. there is no statute or regulation that actually prescribed how a president of the united states is supposed to declassifydeclassify material b customarily thats something always handled by a subordinate officer. presumably there ought to be at least some actual process rather than the mere ideation in the presidents head, walking around as a declassification authority...

Restructuring the classification system. there are regulations and procedures in place. the president does have declassification authority, but he cant just sweep aside all the rules, so we would need to see if there was contemporary documentation, if the procedures were followed, if he was just making that up, and even if he got out from under the classification issues, under a variety of statutes, including 18 usc 2071 hes legally liable, potentially criminally liable for removing, mutilating ...

The -- you know, there is questions about who else might have handled them, whether he went through the proper procedures to declassify them, whether any procedures were followed at all. i think in terms of the presid presidents criminal liability, and you know this well as a former prosecutor, because of his classification authority, the case for prosecuting him possibly as the january 6 committee looks at criminal referrals, doj and inspectors general are looking at this, the case on the class...