Prosecutors have evidence Trump showed classified papers to people – report

submitted by ActuallyNot from theguardian.com

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[–]Threesrwild 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The President is the final arbiter of what is and is not classified. The President can share anything he wants at anytime and it makes sense. The president isn’t going to stop a meeting and get on the horn to some Bureaucrat to ask if he can share the intelligence. No, he makes the decision and that is it.

[–]ActuallyNot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The President is the final arbiter of what is and is not classified.

1) Nope. The markings on the document are the final arbitor of what is and is not classified.

Under an Obama era executive order the President (and vice president for that matter) can instigate a change in classification of a document, but the document must be treated as the marked classification until the paperwork is complete, including the changing of the classification markings on the document.

The President can share anything he wants at anytime and it makes sense.

If he showed sensitive defence information to Saudis in exchange for access to investments, then he would have been ex-president at the time.

[–]Threesrwild 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Wrong again. This is not about classification it is about what power the President has and he is the FINAL arbiter. If he says it is unclassified it is, just like Trump did with the JFK documents but was talked out of releasing them.

It makes sense. The President is in all kinds of meetings and he is not going to stop and get permission to declassify a document or information.

This is nothing but optics especially when Biden had documents all over the place and he absolutely had no authority to do so. Bush had documents in a strip mall. Just stop you look stupid.

[–]ActuallyNot[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wrong again. This is not about classification it is about what power the President has and he is the FINAL arbiter.

Final arbiter of what, if you're not talking about classification?

If he says it is unclassified it is, just like Trump did with the JFK documents but was talked out of releasing them.

So ... You are talking about classification?

You're wrong. I linked you to the Obama era executive order that Trump claims he thought have him the power to mentally declassify documents without telling anyone. Read it. It doesn't do that.

It makes sense

The law doesn't work by things that "make sense". It's written down so that it can be applied equally to powerful and powerless, rich and poor, left and right, and black and white.

Show me the law or executive order you think Trump was following.

This is nothing but optics especially when Biden had documents all over the place

Case history shows that if you make every effort to return the documents and when you become aware of them, you don't get criminally charged.

and he absolutely had no authority to do so.

As you can see from the regulation i linked, he had the same authority as Trump. The power of classification of the president and vice president are the same.

You're right, he and Trump both had absolutely no authority to have the documents. The difference is Biden alerted NARA as soon as he found out. Trump tried to conceal that he had them, how many he had, and refused to hand them back for two years and a search warrant had to be signed.