Posted on 09/20/2022 9:01:31 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I don't think there has to be a "process" at all. Just some record that it actually happened while he was still President, not just a verbal assertion made only after he is no longer President.
For example, the letter he signed stating that he was declassifying the Crossfire Hurricane documents is completely adequate. Why not just do that for the other stuff? Hell, a simple letter signed and left on the desk while he is still President saying "I'm taking the following documents to my home, and hereby declassify all of them."
The argument that a president can take an action that has legal effect simply by thinking it, and not telling anyone or writing anything down, is ridiculous. As I said, the perfect counter example is Obama claiming years after the fact that he mentally pardoned a bunch of criminals< who therefore must now be released.
"Legal effect"; I think that is a good term to use here.
What are the limits to the authority of Congress to dictate how a President handles national secrets? Could Congress demand that the President inform Congress each and every time a document is classified or declassified? Could Congress legislate that classification lapses automatically after 30 days? Could Congress dictate that the President's State of the Union address is classified and that the President does not have the authority to declassify it.
Help me understand the limits of Congressional action and then I can better explain my position. I maintain that the President is simply not bound by the classification system. It's a tool that he can use to do his job. He is the master not the servant of that tool.
This isn't about Congress at all, or about any procedures it might have established regarding the President and classified information.
The question is, how does anyone know whether or not Trump actually declassified documents while President. What is the evidence that he did that, by any method at all?
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson illustrates one possible case. Johnson was impeached, in part, for violating the Tenure of Office Act. This act dictated that Johnson needed permission to fire his own cabinet heads. Johnson violated that act.
The law was later modified and eventually repealed.
Of interest is the following statement in Wikipedia: "While evaluating the constitutionality of a similar law in Myers v. United States (1926), the Supreme Court stated that the Tenure of Office Act was likely invalid."
Congress has a recognized role in providing "advice and consent" to the appointment of officers under the President. They have no role in dictating that the President cannot fire them.
Similarly, Congress has no role in dictating what is classified and what is not classified beyond that with which the President agrees.
If Trump refuses to comment, then the answer may be, "nobody knows". That may be the answer for all time.
Biden didn't and probably couldn't make a claim for having re-classified the documents, because presumably nobody knows which documents are involved. A judge issued a warrant against a former President based on assertions that Trump had classified documents in his possession.
If, as you and others have suggested might have happened, that assertion is a lie. The judge was supposed to weigh the evidence in the application for a warrant and determine that a crime probably had been committed and that evidence substantiating that was probably at Trump's home.
What is the evidence that President Trump decided to declassify those documents, by any method?
I totally disagree. The persecutors of Trump are proceeding completely on the basis that Presidents and former Presidents are subject to legislation involving classification and declassification of documents. Without that legislation the DOJ and the rest of the conspirators would simply have left Donald alone.
Donald Trump has far, far more national secrets inside his brain than he probably ever had inside his house. That is a simple fact of life in our political system. Trump is being treated differently because he is a threat to those who are attacking him.
If that is the case, then as long as the government can prove - which it very likely can - that those documents were classified, then they are still classified.
I claim you are asking the wrong question. What is the evidence that President Trump decided to maintain the classification of those documents?
As I stated in a posting above, the question is "who is the master and who is the servant?" The President is the master and the classification system is his servant.
There is a saying in the legal community, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
If I were on a jury, the prosecution would have to prove that Donald Trump DID NOT declassify these documents. Even if they did prove that, I would not convict a President or former President in such a case. The legislation simply can't be applied to the President.
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