assist and advise him. and trump s lawyers write it is the president s zeg ignition that is determinative. what is you re reaction to that. as you know, i was responsible for these issues in the office of the white house council in the obama administration. and it is just false. i mean, again and again we hear this same theme from the former president that he is above the law that governs all other americans. we have a presidential records act and there are regulations and executive orders that are in place. and it reminds me of his argument that he could de classify documents just by thinking it. it doesn t work that way. there is a process. that is what you have in a rule of law system. so, i think that the courts are going to give short shrift to these positions. also, george, today is the day that the january 6 select
classified information. and they sort of mocked his inability to put forward evidence in the court that he had in fact declassified anything something that he responded to by saying he did it in his own mind. it is a full scale win for the department of justice that will now be able to conduct the investigation of the potential damage from the leak of classified information to an insecure location and then follow up with, if appropriate, criminal charges. so let me ask you something, you were just touching on was donald trump s new comments about whey sees as his power to de classify anything. this panel said something interesting i want to read about this whole question of declassification. they wrote at least for these purposes the declassification argument is a red herring because declassing an official dom would not change its content or render it personal. so even if we assumed that plaintiff, donald trump, did
whether or not anything is protected by executive privilege. she said maybe the department overplays its hand but doesn t give the special master any guidance. why should it be that all of the documents have to go through a privilege review when donald trump never said the documents have to go through a privilege review. and remember his lawyers have been dealing with the archives for months and months about these documents. did they ever say executive privilege? no. did they say standing order to de classify these documents? no. so, this is kind of a grafted on solution at the end that looks like, unfortunately, it is designed to try and protect their guy or at least delay justice from being reached. neal katyal, thank you very much for your insight this morning as we continue to follow this story. coming up, a group of high-profile senators has sent a letter to credit card companies pushing them to help track gun
home, keeping a golf club, our nation s most sensitive documents, special access programs is unfathomable to me. so i don t know that he has a defense besides attacking the prosecutors and all of the games he s playing on social media. i doan see a legal defense yet and i think the most important thing is that it has been two weeks since the search, donald trump hasn t offered a single explanation for what he s doing with these documents. he s they ve had all sorts of different shifting explanations it is a standing order to de classify or this or that. but at the end of the day, you know, why does he have these documents any way? even if he did de classify them. and these statutes don t just criminalize classified information. they cover national security information. so if i m trump s lawyer, what i think i m looking for is trying to figure out who these witnesses are and if i could intimidate them in some way
often took documents including classified documents to the residence. he had a standing order. there is the word i ve been looking for. that documents removed from the oval office and taken to the residents were deemed to be de classified the moment he removed them. the power to classify and de classify documents rests solely with the president of the united states. the idea that some paper pushing bureaucrat with classification authority delegated by the president need to approve the de classification is absurd. well, steve, what is the absurd part to you in that statement? where to begin? you know, i will certainly leave the issue as to whether the former president or any president can waive the proverbial wave the proverbial magic wand and make something classified no longer classified i ll leave to folks who understand better about that but the most absurd thing really about this and it gets to the question of okay.