Post #2556 by commonone on the US Policy board

Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy ❤

Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (54)

Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!

No. of Recommendations: 5

albaby1: Something.

The Brennan Center has a good run-down.

One thing the president cannot do, though, is declassify information 'by thinking about it' ' i.e., without communicating that decision to anyone else. This conclusion follows not from any particular legal requirements but rather from the very essence of what it means to classify or declassify information. As noted above, these are two-step processes: first, an official determines whether the information requires protection, and second, the information is flagged to ensure that the protections are applied or removed. If an official claims to have classified or declassified information after taking the first step but not the second, it's like a customer saying she ordered food at a restaurant when she has decided what she wants to eat but hasn't told the waiter.

The article also notes that the classification status is immaterial with respect to documents at Mar-a-Lago:

Nor does the classification status of the documents affect Trump's criminal liability. The Department of Justice has publicly cited three criminal statutes that might apply in this investigation. None of them require that the information be classified. The most serious charge, the Espionage Act, criminalizes mishandling of information 'relating to the national defense.' Generally, judges consider classification to be strong evidence that information relates to the national defense. But unclassified or declassified information can still qualify ' particularly when the declassification happened entirely outside the usual process, involving no consultation with the relevant agencies about the national security implications of removing protections.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-re....

Post New | Post Reply | Report Post | Recommend It!

Print the post

Unthreaded | Threaded | Whole Thread (54)

Prev | Next

Announcements

US Policy FAQ

Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.

A community forum supporting civilized, and highly helpful, self-educating investors that come together for Shrewdness and merry spirits. These message boards closely follow the look and feel of the old message boards at boards.fool.com prior to the boards redirected to discussion.fool.com. Shrewd'm is not affiliated with the comprehensive and excellent investment website, The Motley Fool (TMF), in any way. The Shrewd commmunity here has owed, and continues to owe, gratitude to The Motley Fool for nurturing a culture of jovial irreverence towards Wall St, and that tradition will continue here.