Another of the “moves” of Trump It has consisted of affirming that the documents stolen from the White House were in Mar-a-Lago because they were destined to be part of the presidential library and museum, an affirmation clearly intended to prop up another lie: that he had declassified them.
That of the library and the museum is part of the peculiar initiatives of Trump, who has used to contradict his own lawyers and advisers, both inside and outside the executive branch. The former president – they have said it themselves-, he is more interested in regaining power than in his own legacy. But even if Trump had thought to place those documents in his presidential library, that argument would by no means have justified having and keeping them with him. In the first place, to have government records in a library, a president must deliver all the documents generated by him to the National Archives, which classify them and give access to those texts to researchers and scholars once all the conditions have been created. And second, highly classified information such as that recovered by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago would also simply not be eligible for public handling.
For obvious reasons, we do not know the contents of the documents recovered in the raid on August 8. However, according to an inventory recently released by the Department of Justice, Trump’s mansion found over 10,000 documents officers. Indeed, in a court filing just a few days ago, the Department made public that more than 100 classified records were found, including files with CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET or TOP SECRET marks, and more than 700 unclassified documents or photographs. At the same time, they released an intriguing fact: there were 48 empty folders marked CLASSIFIED, which has inevitably led to questions and answers that we won’t cover here. All this, and more, was mixed with articles from newspapers, magazines, clothes, gifts and books, data that also refer to the idea of disorder, stampede and chaos.
On the other hand, there federal regulations that establish specific regulations to declassify documents, beyond what Trump alleges. Without now going into all the carpentry involved, reviewing him on the fly makes it clear that declassifying them is not walking through a field. Even the automatic declassification established by those same regulations, 25 years after the registrations are issued, is constrained by national security considerations. And, in any case, again, they have to be in the hands of the National Archives, as provided by the 1978 law, not in private hands.
According to Temple University professor Richard Immerman, presidents generally follow an informal protocol when declassifying documents, which includes consulting “all departments and agencies that have an interest in a classified document. Those departments or agencies, underlines, “they will then provide their assessment as to whether it should remain classified for national security reasons. If there is a dispute between the agencies, they debate, although the president makes the final decision on declassification.”
Not to go any further, as just revealed The Washington Post, A document describing a foreign government’s military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump’s residence and private club at Mar-a-Lago last month. […], which underscores concerns about classified material hidden on the Florida property.” And adds:
Some of the seized documents detail top-secret US operations so closely guarded that many top national security officials are unaware of them. Only the president, some members of his cabinet or an official close to the cabinet could authorize other government officials to learn details of these special access programs, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe information and provide sensitive details. of an ongoing investigation.
Without a doubt, it would be an excess to ask Trump to present evidence of having gone through such a process. Suffice it to say that, in a 2020 decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that “declassification of documents, including by the president, must follow established procedures.” And, to close the point, declassifying a document does not automatically mean that it can be shared as is, “freely”. As is known, once reviewed, line by line, almost all of them are crossed out in black precisely for security considerations. I would then venture to speculate, at the risk of being crucified, that the papers seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago do not have them.
It is that Donald Trump seems destined by Divine Providence to turn everything he touches into elementalities and to go over a little more than two centuries of federal practices and procedures in the midst of his denials, swings of the pendulum and litanies of the type I haven’t done anything wrong/ why the FBI never entered my house Hunter Biden or Joe Biden/ why did they let obama documents will be taken and an extremely long etcetera.
The only thing left then is to agree with the writer Leonardo Padura. There is a space He says“which has been perverted, which is that of politics: there have always been ‘hp’ politicians and criminals, dictators and tyrants, but today you see a political class that one thinks: how can they pretend to deceive me in that way? as if one were an idiot?
