Page 13 - Declassification Authority News Today

For political officials and one of the punishments if convicted is that you cant run for office again. and then as michael says, the other punishment is for the classified information. and that is a serious thing. you know, sandy berger who was president clintons national security adviser, he broke the law and faced the consequences for it. he tried to take a classified document out of the archives. trump evidently did it with a bunch. and michael is right to say the president has declassificati...

The -- you know, theres 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 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 classifie...

Herself. >> lets go back to something from a moment ago and that is that the republican and senate are still interested in this. we have the michael horowitz inspector generals report, we have this continuing here. whats the appetite for it broadly. there are partisans pushing for this. is it something that enjoys the support of many senators? >> i think what senators all defer to is the fact that any president has vast declassification authority. youll remember last year when the president issu...

Justice department going after the cia or the cia might perceive it this way? >> i think the cia would feel under the gun. to your point, when the president gave william barr the declassification authority in this matter, he really holds all the cards, right? so nobody from the cia is going push back too hard when he makes a request because he could declassify things that they want kept secret. that is one of the very most important powers that the cia has is to keep things secret. so the fact t...

This probe. is it your sense that theres a clash here that this is the justice department sort of going after the c.i.a. or that the c.i.a. might perceive that this way? >> well, i mean, i think that the c.i.a. would feel under the gun because, to your point, when the president gave william barr the declassification authority in this matter, he really holds all the cards, right. so nobody from the c.i.a. is going to push back too hard when he makes his request because he could declassify things ...

President trump, quote, constitutionally required. and former deputy assistant for russia, ukraine, and an msnbc analyst. welcome to both of you. i want to actually dispense with what the cia general counsel made and what the justice department may be thinking. you know the justice department better than anybody. i wont say you know william barrs thinking better than anybody. >> i kind of do. >> if its not a campaign finance referral, what could it be? >> bribery, extortion. possibly not the ref...

Authority directly from the president to declassify, they called it at the time quote full and complete authority to declassify government secrets. that was unusual. is that suspicious in this context? in other words, why does trump trust barr so much more than anyone else? >> to the whole thing is strange. we keep hearing the word unprecedented. this really is unprecedented. look, obviously, the president has the ultimate declassification authority. the president can choose to declassify anythi...

Declassification authority. >> yeah. >> when it came to the russia investigation. i think the key point there is the president had to takepto active step. if ratcliffe is in that position, sits aen totop the ns 17 skbejs agencies, that wouldnt be necessary to bestow that authority on him. it will be inherent to his job to declassify and to classify. to keep what the president wants secret and declassify what the president wants out there for his own personal and political ends. >> were out f o t...

Then high-confidence findings of the intelligence assessment regarding russias aggression. when he was president-elect he tweeted comparing our intelligence professionals to nazis. on his first full day in office. he went out to the cia headquarters, stood before the most solemn site in all of langley, memorial wall, at the time commemorated the 117 men and women of the cia who had given their lives in service to the country and bragged about the size of the crowd at his inauguration the day bef...

The presidents decision to authorize to the attorney general declassification authority, allowing him to essentially declassify anything he sees fit vis-a-vis the start of the russia investigation. weve all heard the news reports that informants in russia may have been key to the start of that investigation. all of these steps send a chill down the spine of the brave men and women who want to help us and who we and this president, i should say, are essentially turning away, turning away in drove...