Replies to post #421052 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[SoxFan]

The President can't declassify nuclear documents. Only the Dept of Energy can do that.

[zab]

Once again trump will put this latest revelation of misconduct and criminal activity into the hands of attorneys and the courts. It comes right out of his playbook, delay, delay, and let the news cycle take over and shift the attention to something else.

When and if it actually ever comes up for prosecution, like America learned, go to court and plead the fifth amendment 440 times or until everyone is exhausted. The trump playbook, and then when he loses in court, appeal if a few times until you spend so much money that you have to stiff your attorney and throw yourself at the mercy of the court for a new trial and a new attorney.

Welcome to the land of the rich and wealthy, their playbook is different, they know they are guilty, just like America learned with Alex Jones and the Infowars lawsuit. File bankruptcy and never pay the fines, and the innocent suffer all over again.

[fuagf]

Yep. It has to be a "crock of shit. " My "New to me. If Trump's claim held up wouldn't it mean any future
president could take any document no matter how secret?" was exactly meant to mirror that of yours.

'"Trump says he declassified Mar-a-Lago documents.""

Putting aside all logical and rational arguments the situation legally/politically appears to simply come down to either: one, any president can do anything with any of the highest secret documents he, or she wants to. Without any legal process involved. Or two, no, that's nonsense. The president can not just take and document and claim simply in the taking of it he, or she, declassified it. There is a process and documentation the president must follow. To reiterate these bits from that post of mine:

"The 1978 Presidential Records Act .. https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html , which requires presidents to turn over documents to the National Archives at the end of their administration, lacks an enforcement mechanism, but there are multiple federal laws regarding the handling of classified documents. Trump signed one such law .. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-115publ118/pdf/PLAW-115publ118.pdf .. in 2018, increasing the penalty for "unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material" from one year to five years in prison.

But those in Trump’s orbit say that no president is personally bound by the removal and retention rules governing classified documents, which can be declassified if the president simply says they are, according to Ric Grenell, who was Trump’s acting director of national intelligence and who handled highly classified information.

“There is no approval process for the president of the United States to declassify intelligence. There is this phony idea that he must provide notification for declassification but that’s just silly. Who is he supposed to notify? I think it’s the height of swampism to think the president should seek bureaucrats’ approval,” Grenell told NBC News, emphasizing that he wasn’t personally speaking for the president.

Trump himself said on his Truth Social platform Friday, "It was all declassified."

Richard Immerman, a historian and an assistant deputy director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, said that, while the president has the authority to declassify documents, there’s a formal process for doing so, and there's no indication Trump used it.

“He can’t just wave a wand and say it’s declassified,” Immerman said. “There has to be a formal process. That’s the only way the system can work,” because otherwise there would be no way of knowing who could handle or see the documents."

https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169668704

Grenell has to be a 'full of it' overly partisan, political hack. Richard Immerman's position has to be the only conceivable way it could all work.

Otherwise the National Archives could never again be seen to be what they were set up to be:

Administration?

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever.

Those valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family’s history, need to prove a veteran’s military service, or are researching a historical topic that interests you. Learn more .. https://www.archives.gov/publications/general-info-leaflets/1-about-archives.html .
https://www.archives.gov/about