As the left is getting famous for saying that there is no evidence of Trump’s claims that the election is stolen. The latest right wing saying seems to be that it’s different because Trump could have declassified those documents. I am at a loss to understand why that means anything to anyone, in the sense are we now entertaining unicorns type of way.
Side note Biden as VP also could have under a 2009 Executive order signed by Obama. The right doesn’t seem to acknowledge it.
So what is their logical case as to why that is a difference? I ask in their forums and don’t get an answer that is relevant. So hopefully someone here can express their case in logical terms to present their case.
The only thing that I can come up with is they are saying that those documents may have actually been declassified by Trump’s action of removing them (and thinking about it), though they don’t answer that back, nor did Trump’s legal team put that forth.
US Document classification is a little strange. One of the peculiarities is that “Original Classification Authority Belongs to the President”. Everybody else who classifies or declassifies or accesses a classified document does so with authority delegated directly or indirectly from the president. For everybody else, there are rules about what and when and how to classify and declassify documents, but “The Buck Stops Here” with the president. He ultimately has the authority to decide what is or is not classified.
Let’s try an analogy here.
Imagine that tomorrow President Biden gets a classified document on his desk that is planning . The president considers the matter, and in his judgement, the best way to prevent is to immediately hold a press conference and tell the country about the evil plan. He does so, and in the course of press conference he holds up the classified document for the cameras and reporters to see. Has Biden committed a crime by exposing national security secrets?
If the president has the ultimate authority to determine what is or is not classified, how does it make sense for such an act to be criminal?
Therefore, whatever the president decides to do with classified material is de facto OK because classification is literally one of the privileges of being president. Even if that decision is to bring those classified documents to his house and leave them lying around.
Please understand, I am not here to defend this position. But that is my best understanding of the argument.
It has to work both ways. Even if Trump could “declassify” them by simply “thinking about it,” then there’s nothing stopping the current president Biden from “re-classifying” them by just “thinking about them.”
A legal question; can a President declassify a document by “just thinking about it”? Or does the declassification require the President to inform people in some specified manner that the document has been declassified? I strongly suspect it’s the latter.
Since classification of documents has to involve some process, declassification would also need that. Or else we have a situation that once a president, out of office or in, dies all documents may be considered to be declassified because it is possible, and no way to disprove it. Which is ridiculous, so unless there is some process undertaken while president (which is the only time such a process can be undertaken to declassify), anything that was classified must be assumed to be classified.
Of course. But you are all totally missing the point of the argument because you (all 3 of you) are focused on Trump’s idiotic “Declassify by thinking” line.
It’s not “Declassify by thinking”. It’s “Anything the president does with classified documents is automatically OK”.
Yes, there are arguments against that being the case, but you asked for a logical case why Trump’s document handling was somehow OK. The logical case is, “The president can decide to treat classified documents as if they were unclassified without going through the process to declassify them on paper because deciding what’s classified and unclassified is literally his job”.
I believe this is wrong as a matter of law, but it’s not an entirely irrational or stupid argument.
Right. When Trump shared classified material with Russian diplomats, that was perfectly within his authority to do (whether or not it was a good idea is another matter), but it did not mean that said material was now “declassified.”
Yup, there’s no such thing as an implicit declassification.
There’s a explicit process for declassification, largely defined by a series of executive orders (which also can’t be issued by simply thinking about them).
The president could wave classified information in front of the the press, and the information itself would not be classified. The paper being waved would still have classified markings on it, so it still would be.
Yes, he could. However, the moment that he is no longer president, anything with a classified marking on it is no longer his to treat how he likes.
Ok at least that is an argument. Basically it seems it boils down to the president can do whatever he damn well pleases with classified documents including leaving it with a non-president - including himself when Biden gets sworn in. Though I don’t know how that would declassify them (as the right claims), but just allow Trump to have those specific docs which remain classified.
This is where laziness and poor organizational skills come in. As president he has a free hand to do what he wants, but if he wants to do the same things when he’s no longer president, he needs to tell other people that the documents are officially declassified. Except, that takes work.
That’s right. It doesn’t actually matter how public the information has become. Even the classified stuff dumped on wikileaks and downloaded by (thousands?) all around the world remained technically classified.
I think you’re right, but the argument is that there is. If the president reveals the information on national television (or tells it to Bob Woodward) that information is in effect no longer classified.
Well, maybe. An executive order is like a memo from the CEO of a large company. There isn’t any legislation or anything saying how much authority one has, or imposing criminal penalties for violating one. There certainly isn’t any case law to show that the president is himself bound to abide by past executive orders.
Absolutely. Anybody who would treat classified documents so cavalierly should in no way ever be chosen to be president.
To declassify means “to make available to the public”.
You can’t declassify and, at the same time, not tell anyone and also try to hide those documents. It’s like someone saying that “We’re trying to get pregnant” while getting your tubes tied and wearing condoms, religiously. The actions are directly contrary to the assertion.
Likewise, “making available to the public” is not, in any way, synonymous with “ceasing its existence as government property”. It would still be the property of the National Archives and the original, authoritative versions of the documents would need to be delivered to them and archived.
In general, the “I could have declassified” argument is irrelevant to the accusation. It’s like saying, “Well, yes, I murdered that woman but someone might have given me the wrong gun to do it with!” It doesn’t deny that you were still trying to commit the crime, just that you could have committed the crime in a slightly different way. In a sense, it’s an admission of guilt.
Perhaps so, but that really doesn’t matter for purposes of the OP. The question was the justification for how one case was different from the other.
And the answer is there’s simply no logical consistency to that argument. If the argument applies in one case, it should apply in other cases, yet that’s not what proponents of that line of thinking publicly state.
It is not logically inconsistent to argue that the president has a special unique authority over classified information. Biden, Clinton, and Pence were not president when they mishandled classified documents. Trump was. It’s very much debatable whether that is a relevant distinction legally, but it’s not inherently unreasonable nor illogical to take the other side of that debate.
Well, if, as seems apparent, the other cases were simply instances of careless oversights in packing and shipping of documents, the packing and shipping must have happened while they were still President/VP, because the offices had to be cleaned out by the time their term actually expired.
But really, the only relevant distinction between their cases and Trump’s is the whole “hid it in his basement and lied about it” part.
The classified documents were at Mar-A-Lago when they should not have been long after Trump was president, so your statement is inaccurate. Unless you have a typo in there or missed some wording you had meant to add.