I was found this article debunking the myths about this case, it’s an interesting read.
It addresses the claim that the classified documents were declassified just because Trump says they were. That isn’t how it works.
Traditionally, rarely if ever does the president personally serve as an original classification authority. If the former president personally declassified information contained in documents removed to the White House residence, procedures should have been in place to notify the official who originally classified that information who in turn would have to have notified the potentially millions of individuals who derivatively classified or otherwise had copies of that same classified information. No such procedures appear to have existed during the Trump administration. As such, if Trump had, in fact, declassified the records in question, the original classifier and the myriad of authorized users of that information would remain oblivious to the fact that the information contained therein would no longer have the legal protections of the classification system. One such user was the president’s own national security advisor, John Bolton, who stated, “I was never briefed on any such order, procedure, policy when I came in,” adding that he had never been told of it while he was working there, and had never heard of such a thing after.
Another article on the same site talks about the process for declassifying documents, which I know we argued about back and forth here, but I don’t recall anyone talking about what the actual process is. This article has some info about it though.
Strictly speaking, even if Trump ordered the declassification of the records (verbally or in writing), what is likely to matter for purposes of handling and storing the records after he left the White House was if the mandatory follow-on actions occurred. Classified documents have classification markings in the header and footer of each page, indicating the level of classification for the document as a whole. Furthermore, classified records have cover sheets that specifically indicate when the record was classified, by whom, and under what authority, as well as when the classification expires.
If Trump did in fact order the declassification, he still needed to make sure his staff took the necessary next steps to modify the classification markings on the documents before he could actually handle and store the records (as a private citizen) as if they were unclassified. Under security classification rules, a classification marking on a document has to be treated as valid and binding unless and until a subsequent marking replaces it. Appropriate government staffers would have needed to cross out the classification markings in the headers and footers, and stamped “declassified” on the record noting when it was declassified, by whom and under what authority. Since that does not appear to have been done with the classified documents reportedly identified to date, the documents remain classified and had to be treated as classified for handling and storage purposes.
Simply speaking, if Trump claims that a document is declassified, but the document is still marked as classified, then legally speaking it is classified. It doesn’t matter what he says, what matters is what is on the documents. It seems like it’s that easy.