re: Federal Judge Reveals BIDEN WH Ordered FBI Access to Mar-a-Lago Documents

quote:

---

Ok. So what is the allegation against Trump? You are saying he sent over docs that were presidential records. Seems like that was cooperation. Especially since he has the ultimate authority to determine what is presidential records and what are personal records. I thought that’s the route you were going. If you are saying he is guilty of something because he had classified docs, that is a losing case. He had plenary power to declassify.

---

There are two primary allegations:

1) He failed to return all Presidential Records (15 boxes were returned, his lawyer certified it was everything, Someone narked, and FBI raided they found more documents.

There's not much wiggle room here, Presidential Documents are designated as anything materially produced during his presidency that's not personal in nature (e.g. letter to his son, Barron saying congrats on high school).

This could have been avoided if they'd simply done a full scan of the documents in question and not tried to effectively lie to NARA and say, "We have nothing, seriously".

2) Classified documents, this one is more complex, the President can declassify documents but the process for that usually entails signoff/right of response from the originator of the classified material. The President can then overrule any objections to declassifying the material, this is a written formal process.

Either way, I've never heard of it being done "verbally", nor do I see how that would hold up as a sanity test. At that point you're relying on 3rd party hearsay to determine what if anything is declassified.

Regardless, classified or unclassified, none of these documents would be considered "personal" records, and should have been sent to NARA. The fact that they were "potentially" classified just makes it all the worse.