Trump: 'I'm Allowed to Do Whatever I Want' With Classified Info
www.rollingstone.com
The former president told Hugh Hewitt that he “absolutely” would testify in the federal government’s probe of his handling of sensitive material

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.”

    • Masterofballs@lemmy.world
      118·
      1 year ago

      I don’t suggest anyone use polififact for any type of fact checking as they are clearly political biased but they do quote some decent sources here https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/may/16/james-risch/does-president-have-ability-declassify-anything-an/

      https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/484/518/

      “The President, after all, is the ‘Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States’” according to Article II of the Constitution, the court’s majority wrote. “His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security … flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.”

      Basically, classification and declassification are extensions of the executive branches power. The argument is that you can’t use the presidents power to arrest the president. Classification exist for the president so he can’t really break any rules with it.

      Ultimately a court will decide and I’m betting on the president getting to keep ultimate authority on what is and is not classified. Regardless if he told someone else it is declassified.