# Trump could have declassified. WTF **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [February 3, 2023, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254 "2023-02-03T12:43:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/41 "2023-02-06T14:39:30Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > 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. Ok, if you prefer, Trump mishandled classified information that he obtained as president. This is not true of the others. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/42 "2023-02-06T15:00:21Z")
Why the desperate search for some kind of meaningful distinction or justification? The people still trying to carve out an exception for Trump are clearly not providing any of these justifications and do not appear to be interested in equal application of the law. Why go through these twisted logical gymnastics trying to find some sort of rational thought process that justifies their behavior when they themselves aren’t interested in doing so? Their justifications so far are limited to ‘somehow it’s different in this case’. Trying to give them even more benefit of the doubt? Let them speak for themselves. There’s no utility in threading such a small needle for them except as the world’s most boring exercise in pedantry. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/43 "2023-02-06T15:03:22Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > Ok, if you prefer, Trump mishandled classified information that he obtained as president. This is not true of the others. That makes no difference. I see no accusation about how any of them _acquired_ the documents. Why should that circumstance matter? ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/44 "2023-02-06T15:14:54Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > That makes no difference. I see no accusation about how any of them _acquired_ the documents. Why should that circumstance matter? Because the president alone is the ultimate decider on matters of classification and if he decides to leave classified documents in an unsecured location that is within his authority. (Again, I think this is probably wrong, but I also don’t think it’s moronic to believe it) > [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Why the desperate search for some kind of meaningful distinction or justification? > > The people still trying to carve out an exception for Trump are clearly not providing any of these justifications and do not appear to be interested in equal application of the law. Because the temperature of discourse in this country is at an all-time high, and things like January 6th are an outworking of that temperature. That temperature is high in large part because everybody assumes bad faith on the part of everybody they disagree with and assumes their arguments are not worth the time of day. We would all do well to consider the _best_ arguments of those we disagree with rather than nut picking the worst. You can’t fight ignorance by assuming the ignorant are unredeemable morons. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/45 "2023-02-06T15:17:12Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > Well I think you’re wrong, based, again, on my experience. If you _can_ point to a specific law that makes it illegal to mishandle information _marked_ classified regardless of the contents, I’ll eat my hat and confess that I was mistaken. I’m not sure what point you’re making here. I feel you’re going for some subtle distinction that I’m missing. But I cited the Espionage Act in a previous post. Here’s the text of relevant section: > (a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information […] Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. > > (b) As used in subsection (a) of this section— > > The term “classified information” means information which, at the time of a violation of this section, is, for reasons of national security, specifically designated by a United States Government Agency for limited or restricted dissemination or distribution; I feel you are making some point about how something that has been “marked” as classified information may not be the same as something that has been “designated” as classified information. But if so, that point isn’t clear to me. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/46 "2023-02-06T15:27:58Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > That temperature is high in large part because everybody assumes bad faith on the part of everybody they disagree with and assumes their arguments are not worth the time of day. This is exactly my point. _They_ aren’t making these arguments. _You_ are making these arguments for them in some attempt to give them some sort of benefit of the doubt. If they have made those arguments, well and good (well, not really, but at least it would be an honest attempt). But they haven’t. So, you are requesting they be given the credit for good faith, not for anything they themselves have done but for a very narrow, contrived circumstance that does not appear to exist in reality. This seems to be some sort of distinction you believe is important, but directly answering the OP, the folks actually out there online aren’t making the case you are but their own arguments, which appear to be neither logically consistent nor bears any relation to the law as currently understood. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/47 "2023-02-06T15:29:59Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > Because the president alone is the ultimate decider on matters of classification and if he decides to leave classified documents in an unsecured location that is within his authority. Again, he is not suspected of crimes he committed **while president.** What you said is 100% true. Once he is no longer president (you know that he’s not president…?) he has no such authority. When the government tells him he has to give them back, he must or that’s a crime. As is lying about having them and trying to hide them. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/48 "2023-02-06T15:48:31Z")
The claim was that it wouldn’t matter if Trump had declassified the documents because they were still _marked_ classified, and mishandling things that are marked classified is illegal regardless of the contents. Given that claim, I don’t think the distinction I’m making is subtle. It directly addresses the claim. ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/49 "2023-02-06T16:32:50Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > If they have made those arguments, well and good (well, not really, but at least it would be an honest attempt). But they haven’t. So, you are requesting they be given the credit for good faith, not for anything they themselves have done but for a very narrow, contrived circumstance that does not appear to exist in reality. They are making that claim. Here is one example: > In reality, Trump could have unclassified these documents at any time for any reason — although there is no clear indication that he did (and [some experts insist](https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-raid-claim-instantly-declassify-documents-is-bs-leon-panetta-2022-8) a specific process must be followed to declassify) — so, to a degree, it defies logic that he now might be held criminally responsible for possessing the same information. (Remember, the [Presidential Records Act](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-presidential-records-act-mar-a-lago-fbi-national-archives/) has no criminal or administrative enforcement mechanism.) Even more than that, it makes no sense that someone could be convicted of a crime for acts that would have been made perfectly legal by the stroke of a pen by that same person. [https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3605533-whats-the-crime-in-keeping-classified-documents-trump-and-the-nation-may-find-out/](https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3605533-whats-the-crime-in-keeping-classified-documents-trump-and-the-nation-may-find-out/) And the Trump’s office has claimed the same thing: > The very fact that these documents were present at Mar-a-Lago means they couldn’t have been classified…The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the President of the United States. The idea that some paper-pushing bureaucrat, with classification authority delegated BY THE PRESIDENT, needs to approve of declassification is absurd. > **[New twist in FBI raid: Trump had 'standing order' to declassify documents...](https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/breaking-trump-describes-process-how-he-declassified-documents)** > > Former president's office describe previously undeclared process that led to sensitive documents landing in Mar-O-Lago. Of course Trump has claimed many other things in regards to these documents, but this is the claim the OP was asking about. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/50 "2023-02-06T16:46:32Z")
> [@The Hill](#): > > it makes no sense that someone could be convicted of a crime for acts that would have been made perfectly legal by the stroke of a pen by that same person. Wow, what an aggressively stupid take. Crimes are not defined by whether or not the criminal had the ability to make the act legal. If our government wanted crimes defined this way, they had ample time to write it down. Instead, the way crimes work is… if you have a legal way to do something you want to do, you should do that instead of committing a crime… even if the legal way means using a pen. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/51 "2023-02-06T16:52:33Z")
Trump “declassifying by thinking about it” is functionally no different than the “Trump Secretly pardons himself” nonsense we were hearing at the end of his term. Yes, it’s trivially obvious that the president has the power to declassify, and to pardon a person. But doing it “in secret” is indistinguishable from not doing it at all. I don’t think the president can be held to any specific process for carrying out these activities, but they have to do _something_ public, just so that people have a chance to even know that it was done. That he didn’t even do the absolute minimum to tell anyone else about this “declassification” suggests that he didn’t actually do it, at least not at the time, because why would he hide this? Making things public is kind of the point of declassifying them. So, then there’s the WTF? part of the question. Why would he have kept these documents, and not _also_ **publicly** declassified them when he had the power to do so? Well, the answer to that is, he didn’t think he’d be caught, and a classified document is worth more than a public document. Why would Russia pay him for information that he’d already made publicly available? Because I’m pretty sure that’s what this was ultimately all about - he wanted his hands on stuff that would be valuable to him after he was out of office, because undying greed is his one immutable character trait. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/52 "2023-02-06T17:00:24Z")
“Why are they arresting me for taking money from the bank vault in the middle of the night when I could have withdrawn it during the day with the stroke of a pen?” The details are rather important. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/53 "2023-02-06T17:01:03Z")
What makes no sense is the idea that files can be declassified without any formal process at all. The classification of documents, especially those that are extremely sensitive, is very important. While the president can declassify (almost) any document he wants to, he has to **actually do it.** It has to be recorded somewhere. Otherwise, how is the government supposed to know how to handle it? Also, as has been said earlier on this board in the Mar-A-Lago thread, there are certain kinds of information (usually regarding nuclear secrets) that lay outside of the president’s ability to declassify at will. And reportedly, documents of that nature were found at Mar-A-Lago. So even if the “I can declassify with my mind” nonsense were true (it’s not), some of the documents wouldn’t have been covered. This page has some good info on all of this: > **[Government Classification and the Mar-a-Lago Documents](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/government-classification-and-mar-lago-documents)** > > Understanding how the classification system works is critical to understanding Trump’s culpability — legal and otherwise. > As with classification, declassification is a two-step process. First, an authorized official must determine that the information no longer requires protection. Second, that determination must be communicated so that the protections are removed. Accordingly, when a decision has been made to declassify information, it must be marked as declassified. If the declassification affects an entire category of information, the agency’s classification guide must be updated accordingly. If it is narrower, the decision may be captured in a declassification guide — although often, the consultation process that accompanies a declassification decision is sufficient to alert the necessary personnel. > The Constitution also provides Congress with significant authority in the area of national security. In areas where the president and Congress share power, Congress may choose to legislate in ways that limit the president’s authority. For example, because Congress has specified that only the Department of Energy may declassify certain nuclear information, the president has no authority to do so. ---
**Author:** ![tofor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tofor/32/13727_2.png) [@tofor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofor)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/54 "2023-02-06T17:07:07Z")
I give up. I don’t want to be the one defending this argument. I wish there were somebody reasonable here who believed it and was willing to defend it, but that person is not me. I only wanted to help the OP see that there is an argument being made, and it’s not inherently stupid (even if it is wrong). ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/55 "2023-02-06T17:12:37Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > I only wanted to help the OP see that there is an argument being made, and it’s not inherently stupid (even if it is wrong). Let me offer you a bit of support then. Yes, Trump’s people are making such claims, and yes there does seem to be a veneer of plausibility to the claims if you don’t know what is codified in law or how the government works. Those claims aren’t being made in a legal setting, they’re being made to the public to try to convince people that any investigation is a “witch hunt” and Trump did nothing wrong. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t true, it will convince some people so they consider it worthwhile. It’s purely PR. So yes, that is the “logical case” they are making. It’s about as logical as Sovereign Citizen theories. It’s logical only if you are ignorant of the law. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/56 "2023-02-06T17:49:57Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > I wish there were somebody reasonable here who believed it and was willing to defend it, This is the case for many arguments that defend Trump. You have to twist yourself into knots to get to the point where it makes “sense” because, deep down, what he did is not actually defensible. We all know what really happened. He never intended to declassify these documents, he was just irresponsible with them, and when called out on it, reacted like a man-baby. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/57 "2023-02-06T19:56:22Z")
> [@tofor](#): > > I wish there were somebody reasonable here who believed it and was willing to defend it, but that person is not me. I only wanted to help the OP see that there is an argument being made, and it’s not inherently stupid (even if it is wrong). But it _is_ inherently stupid, which is why no one _reasonable_ will step forward to try to make this argument. Even the Trumpers know that trying to argue this point just makes them look foolish. That’s the fundamental problem with trying to defend the indefensible. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254/58 "2023-02-06T20:34:36Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > The claim was that it wouldn’t matter if Trump had declassified the documents because they were still _marked_ classified, and mishandling things that are marked classified is illegal regardless of the contents. > > Given that claim, I don’t think the distinction I’m making is subtle. It directly addresses the claim. Okay, I see your point. You’re saying that any classified markings on documents that have been declassified are essentially just artifacts that no longer hold any authority. I’ll grant that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-have-declassified-wtf/979254.md?page=2)