Former Defense Sec'y: It’s ‘B.S.’ To Say Trump Could Declassify Documents with Only a Standing Order
Just one of the excuses since boxes were carted from Mar-a-Lago last week
Donald Trump's excuse that he was storing classified and other documents at his Florida home because he had had some sort of standing order to “declassify” national security materials at the White House is “B.S.,” according to a longtime Washington official who served in national security capacities.
Trump and his associates have been offering a variety of excuses since last week, when FBI agents executed a fully lawful search warrant to remove boxes of national security materials which the former president was illegally storing at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
One such defense was that Trump had had a standing order as president to automatically declassify any materials he would take from the Oval Office, to the White House residence for review.
No, that just won't fly, according to Leon Panera, a former Democratic congressman, White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, as well as CIA chief and defense secretary to President Barack Obama.
“You know, that’s nonsense, and he knows it,” Panetta said in an on-camera appearance on CNN. “The reality is that there is a process for declassifying information. And if presidents want to declassify, they have to follow that process, which basically requires that it be referred to the agencies that are responsible for classifying that material.
“They have something to say as to whether or not that material should be declassified. So, there is nothing that I’m aware of that indicates that a formal step was taken by this president to, in fact, declassify anything. Right now, this is pretty much B.S.,” Panetta added.
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