tek wrote: ↑Fri Feb 11, 2022 5:35 am
Suranis wrote: ↑Thu Feb 10, 2022 8:34 pm
Thing is, as President, technically he could declassify whatever he liked. So he might hide behind that as a defense...
He could, but he can't now.
IIRC there is more to declassification than DJT saying "I declassified that before I packed it"
Remember, early in his presidency, he met with some Russian officials and handed them some classified documents? There was a bit of a stink about it, but, the furor died down and the concensus seemed to be that the act of giving them to the Russians constituted declassifying them.
Theoretically, he could argue that, similarly, the act of removing them from the WH (as long as he did it before noon on Jan. 20, 2021) effectively declassified them. I think that argument is BS.
I seriously doubt that TFG will be formally charged with illegally removing classified material, although I think that he should be.