DONALD TRUMP SAID he “absolutely” plans to testify in the federal government’s case against him regarding classified documents he removed from the White House. “I’m allowed to do whatever I want … I’m allowed to do everything I did,” the former president told conservative podcast host Hugh Hewitt.
In an interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” that dropped Wednesday, the host asked Trump, “Did you direct anyone to move the boxes, Mr. President? Did you tell anyone to move the boxes?” referring to the boxes of more than 300 classified documents the federal government seized last year from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“I don’t talk about anything. You know why? Because I’m allowed to do whatever I want. I come under the Presidential Records Act,” Trump replied, while also taking a quick detour to bash Hewitt. “I’m not telling you. You know, every time I talk to you, ‘Oh, I have a breaking story.’ You don’t have any story. I come under the Presidential Records Act. I’m allowed to do everything I did.”
You linked a case stating the president has the authority to classify or declassify documents as they see fit. Which again, isn’t what he’s being charged for. He took documents to Mar-a-Lago and kept them there once he was no longer president. This violates the Presidential Records Act as those documents became public property once he was no longer president. It again does not matter at all whether or not they were classified.
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Yes. Even if he declassified them first. Because, again, the classification status of the documents does not matter. They are not his property to do with as he pleases even after he declassified them. Once he was no longer president all presidential documents regardless of classification status needed to be relinquished to The National Archives for archival purposes. This was not done.
This all being said I’m merely arguing whether or not he broke the law. Which he very clearly did and should, imo, face consequences for it. If only for how alarming it is that he stole documents pertaining to US nuclear capabilites and military plans. Even if you argue that he CAN declassify them I don’t think it should be controversial to say that he absolutely should not have done so.
Now whether or not he’ll actually go down for it is a whole other discussion entirely. And I’m not intimately enough aware of the case to predict one outcome or another. But he absolutely should go down for it.
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You’d have a point if deflection, obfuscation, and misdirection weren’t the modus operandi of the GOP as of late.