Mark Meadows has told investigators he could not recall President Trump ever ordering the declassification of broad sets of materials before leaving office, sources say.

Appearing to contradict former President Donald Trump’s primary public defense in the classified documents case, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has told special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators that he could not recall Trump ever ordering, or even discussing, declassifying broad sets of classified materials before leaving the White House, nor was he aware of any “standing order” from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of materials taken out of the Oval Office, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

  • Silverseren@kbin.social
    57·
    1 year ago

    Of course, this is all irrelevant to what he remembers. Declassification is not and has never been a “say it and it’s done” sort of procedure. There is a form to fill out and the declassification is only official when the declassified stamp is physically added (usually by the President, though not necessarily always) to the document.

    Even the whole “if the President tells the classified information publicly it becomes declassified” thing still requires going through this official procedure afterwards. Honestly, the courts have never really addressed the legality of the spoken word method, not that Trump did that anyways for the material in question.

    • ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works
      6·
      1 year ago

      Yep. The espionage act doesn’t even require anything to be classified. He stole, hid, and refused to give back defense secrets. Doesn’t matter if they’re classified or not. That’s decades of prison.

    • orbitz@lemmy.ca
      3·
      1 year ago

      Yup, with their gishgallop they flood the zone with excuses and hope people start picking apart the details of their obvious lies…rather than focusing on the fact the whole thing can’t be done by the handwaving of an Adderall binging narcissist President without proper procedures. The government has so much paperwork for getting a passport, you think declassification takes less? Okay that’s just a guess I really have no idea on the paperwork needed for declassification but I assume it’s more than to say yes to the lady behind the desk, or announce it to the chandelier in your bathroom while you squeeze out a deuce.