Trump Claims He Declassified All the Documents at Mar-a-Lago. Even if That’s True, it Probably Doesn’t Matter
WASHINGTON – Former President Donald J. Trump announced on Friday that before leaving office, he had declassified all the documents the FBI found during a search of his Florida residence this week. the agents are described as classified in the list of what they seized – includes some caches that are clearly marked as “top secret”.
“It’s all declassified,” Trump said in a statement.
The statement echoes assertions made in May by Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official and major Trump supporter, after the National Archives found documents marked classified in boxes of documents that it removed from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and properties. He assertive that Mr. Trump had assumed those files had been declassified shortly before leaving office, but the markings had not yet been removed from them.
Mr. Trump gave no details, but if he says he covered it up, citing orally that all the records he brought to Mar-a-Lago were unclassified, no any official record, that would be difficult to prove or disprove. Even without evidence that Mr. Trump followed normal procedures to declassify certain types of information, his lawyers could argue that he is not constitutionally bound to follow the rules. such rule.
But in any case, such a request will not solve the problem. First, two of the laws that search warrants were executed at Mar-a-Lago this week addressed – Section 1519 and 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code – making it a crime to obtain or conceal government records regardless of whether they have anything to do with national security.
On the other hand, laws against obtaining or hoarding documents with limited national security information, which often carry heavier penalties than ordinary document theft, are not always relevant to whether such files are technically classified or not.
That’s because some criminal laws enacted by Congress to protect certain national security information operate separately from the executive branch’s document classification system, created by presidents. executive order – is “secret”, “secret” or “top secret”.
In particular, the third law that references warrants is Section 793, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for each crime. Better known as the Espionage Act, it was enacted by Congress during World War I, decades before President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order creating the modern classification system for executive branch.
Therefore, the Espionage Act does not address whether a document should be considered classified. Instead, it is a crime to withhold, without authorization, defense-related materials that could be used to harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary.
Prosecutors could argue that a document meets the standard of that act regardless of whether Mr. Trump declared it unclassified shortly before leaving office; by analogy, defense attorneys could argue that it didn’t meet that standard regardless of how it was marked.
Steven Aftergood, who runs the Government Project, said: “Because the Espionage Act is about defense information, it leaves open the possibility that such information may not be classified as long as an agency is still taking steps to protect it from disclosure. Secret at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.
