After some initial success, former President Trump’s claims he declassified the records found in his Mar-a-Lago home are beginning to hit roadblocks in court.
Authorities have recovered some 300 classified documents from Trump’s Florida home over the course of this year, including 100 seized during the August search.
Trump doubled down on his claim he declassified the records in the Wednesday night interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
“I did declassify,” he said. “If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it.”
He also implied there would be no evidence of such a decision, even though a presidential declassification triggers a number of actions from various intelligence agencies.
“There can be a process, but there doesn’t have to be. You’re the president. You make that decision. So when you send it, it’s declassified,” Trump added.
In court however – where Trump’s lawyers have insinuated he may have declassified the documents but stopped short of fully making the assertion – judges this week pushed back.
A Florida judge initially looked more positively to that argument and others, awarding Trump’s request for a special master, but subsequent judges haven’t responded as favorably.
Trump’s legal team resisted a request from Judge Raymond Dearie, the candidate they forwarded to be special master who is now serving in the role, to elaborate on a filing noting that Trump could have declassified the records. Their failure to do so seemed to irk the judge when both parties met with Dearie on Tuesday.
And an appeals court on Wednesday ruled in favor of the Justice Department, striking down a lower court’s denial of their request to exempt the classified records from the special master process.
Trump’s declassification claims featured in the ruling.
“Plaintiff suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was President. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified. And before the special master, Plaintiff resisted providing any evidence that he had declassified any of these documents,” a three-judge panel that included two Trump appointees ruled for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Declassification would not excuse the crimes listed on the warrant to search Trump’s home. The Espionage Act deals only with “national defense information” while another deals with concealing government records.
The court also questioned why the Trump team was making the claim, noting that regardless, he has no reason to claim declassified records are his personal property.
“In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal. So even if we assumed that plaintiff did declassify some or all of the documents, that would not explain why he has a personal interest in them,” the judges wrote.
“For our part, we cannot discern why plaintiff would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings.”
The tranche of documents found at Trump’s home include some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets, including those that can only be accessed by those with a “need to know.”
“This requirement pertains equally to former presidents, unless the current administration, in its discretion, chooses to waive that requirement,” the court wrote.
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Trump declassification claims hit roadblocks in court https://t.co/mGQqiwvz8f pic.twitter.com/r7Cu3px00i
— The Hill (@thehill) September 23, 2022
Intelligence officials have resumed their national security-risk review of the classified documents seized at Trump’s estate, a spokesperson told POLITICO. https://t.co/QHPqDCWOwy
— POLITICO (@politico) September 23, 2022
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