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First the Biden administration is not claiming anything one way or another. The DOJ and the FBI are handling the case. Yes, the rules issued by the President most certainly do apply to the President unless you are saying they are above the law. Please cite a link or article where it says Trump had these papers at MAL from when he was president and just did not return them. Everything I have read states that they were moved there after he left office, not during. Lastly, whether they were classified or not has no bearing on the case since the charges being investigated do not relate to classified information.
1) The DOJ IS the Biden Administration, led by a political appointee of the president. Seriously??
2) No, those rules don't apply to the president. And it would be nonsensical if they did. The rules for classification and declassification set standards and procedures from the president for these matters. They are essentially the president laying the groundwork for how the process will unfold. Who would the president be certifying that he followed through with these procedures? Himself? That's silly. This isn't the president being above the law, but rather the president acting consistent with the law for all intents and purposes here. It's similar to the pardon power. The president doesn't have to ask permission for a pardon to be issued. And there is no pardon process established by the Constitution; the president can speak a pardon into existence and it be granted. That there is DOJ guidance regarding pardons is neither here nor there as they don't technically bind the president.
3) As for evidence that Trump had the papers at Mar-a-Lago when he was president, that's an assumption I make based on the fact that load out of various documents took place on 14 JAN 2021: https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...archives-2021/
And even if he didn't hand carry the items in question on Air Force One on inauguration day (and Trump got to Mar-a-Lago hours before he officially transferred power to Biden per the timestamp of this article: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/p...togallery.html, we're talking about a week for the government to move presidential paperwork. Government can move slowly, but not when it comes to the president.
Still, this isn't even necessary for my argument. Indeed, even if Trump shipped the paperwork vs. personally carried them on January 20, he would have done so/authorized for such to occur while still president. If he was sending documents to his compound when he knew he'd no longer be president on January 20, that supports his argument that he had the documents declassified. To hold otherwise would be to believe that Trump was intending for classified information to remain at his property in an unsecured space when he would no longer be president. DOJ could make such an argument, but the inferences are stronger in the other direction and further support declassification.
Lastly, yes, the DOJ is also (among other things) investigating potential mishandling of classified information: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/appe...ry?id=90296433 It's all laid out in black and white. And it makes sense as there is literally no enforcement mechanism of potential violations of the Presidential Records Act in the statute, which would make such a show by DOJ here for a mere potential PRA violation all the more silly.
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 21 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,091,524 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by prospectheightsresident
The president can. The Supreme Court has ruled that the power over classification is one that belongs to the president, alone, due to his role as commander in chief. It's not something that Congress can limit or change. Rules concerning classification and declassification are found via Executive Order, issued by the president. From my view, it's nonsensical to claim that the rules issued by the president bind the president. If they did, every single day that classified information was at Mar-a-Lago while Trump was president would have been illegal as Mar-a-Lago isn't a SCIF. But not even the Biden administration is claiming that. The president needs access to classified information wherever he is as a part of doing his job. Nobody disputes that Trump took those papers with him to Mar-a-Lago while he was still president (remember, he didn't even attend Biden's inauguration). Only question is whether he declassified them before leaving office. I've explained in previous posts why things appear to be in his favor on this point.
Couple of points:
1) The authority to declassify is for the President while he is in office, not for life.
2) "A sitting U.S. president has wide-ranging authority to classify and declassify certain documents, but former presidents do not have authority over classification and declassification. " https://www.verifythis.com/article/n...5-671dc9c6f7ec
3) There are procedures that should be followed (same link) and i'm sure documentation which he can't provide should be maintained.
At this point he had the papers, undocumented and without any authority to retain them or change their classification.
My problem is if any government document is declassified it would be made available to all of us. How am I to know what's declassified so I can file a FOIA? Did TFG publish a list somewhere? Did he inform the agency that produced the document?
Even if they were declassified, he still stole them.
You can't be serious. The government has originals and/or copies of all of the classified or formerly classified documents. They're not stolen or even missing. The government still has them. The FOIA thing is irrelevant. FOIA doesn't limit the President's authority.
1) The authority to declassify is for the President while he is in office, not for life.
2) "A sitting U.S. president has wide-ranging authority to classify and declassify certain documents, but former presidents do not have authority over classification and declassification. " https://www.verifythis.com/article/n...5-671dc9c6f7ec
3) There are procedures that should be followed (same link) and i'm sure documentation which he can't provide should be maintained.
At this point he had the papers, undocumented and without any authority to retain them or change their classification.
The part in bold is the most obvious thing in the world, and we all know it. But Trump was President and was able to declassify the documents while he was still President. And there are no procedures whatsoever that must be followed.
If any POTUS can declassify and change the rules whenever they feel like it, what's the point of having rules?
From now on, any piece of paper that goes to the Oval or the living quarters or any home the POTUS uses can be used for anything the POTUS deems fit.
I get it.
That's been the law from the time the Constitution was ratified. As far as I know, no one ever even pretended otherwise until Trump came along. And the point of the rules is so that the President's employees act in conformity with the boss's wishes.
Trump was widely mocked for saying, in terms of the documents at Mar-a-Lago, that he could have declassified documents just by thinking, without going through the formal process of paperwork.
Someone made this cute point that should have been obvious, as a Letter to the Editor.
Trump’s ‘Magical Powers’ of Declassification
Donald Trump claims that as president he declassified hundreds of documents by thinking about it. Perhaps unbeknown to him, President Biden has reclassified all those documents the same way.
Michael Katten
El Cerrito, Calif. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/o...ification.html
There's a fallacy in that reasoning though - and that is: Biden can't think ....
My problem is if any government document is declassified it would be made available to all of us. How am I to know what's declassified so I can file a FOIA? Did TFG publish a list somewhere? Did he inform the agency that produced the document?
Even if they were declassified, he still stole them.
You can file all the FOIAs you want to, but it likely won't get the result you're after. Even though a document is unclassified or has been declassified, there are still documents, and plenty of them, listed as "For Government Use Only", "For Internal Use Only", etc. Something doesn't have to have a national security classification to be unavailable to the general public.
Location: 23.7 million to 162 million miles North of Venus
23,563 posts, read 12,535,636 times
Reputation: 10475
Quote:
Originally Posted by RocketDawg
There's a fallacy in that reasoning though - and that is: Biden can't think ....
That is true!
But even if he could think and reclassifies them, then it still would not be a "get Trump" moment. It's cute that the anti-MAGA's think it would be though.
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