JosephZ
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Here's a summary of the declassification process. Since documents found at Mar a Lago were still marked as classified, he failed to go through the proper process to declassify them.The idea that all this information has to be permanently declassified by the president through a bureaucratic process that also declassifies it in every situation is rather ludicrous.
The idea that this process follows a strict declassification process is bunko.
The "SCI" designation is an abbreviation for "Sensitive Compartmented Information" and refers to classified information involving sensitive intelligence sources, methods or analytical processes, and which can only be discussed within a "SCIF" — a "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility" — a secure room or building limited to government officials with a corresponding security clearance.
As for the president's power to declassify materials, here's some background on how it works, according to current and former intelligence officials familiar with the declassification process.
First, a U.S. president does have uniquely sweeping declassification abilities, though there is a process that involves written documentation and several other steps.
It's not the case that a president can declassify documents with just verbal instructions. His instruction to declassify a given document would first be memorialized in a written memo, usually drafted by White House counsel, which he would then sign.
Typically, the leadership of the agency or agencies with equities in the document would be consulted and given an opportunity to provide their views on the declassification decision. As the ultimate declassification authority, however, the president can decide to override any objections they raise.
Once a final decision is made, and the relevant agency receives the president's signed memo, the physical document in question would be marked — the old classification level would be crossed out — and the document would then be stamped, "Declassified on X date" by the agency in question.
Former Trump administration officials have claimed that Trump previously declassified the documents taken with him to Mar-a-Lago, but that the classification markings had not been updated.
"The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn't mean the information wasn't declassified," former Trump defense official Kash Patel told Breitbart in May, regarding other material that had earlier been removed from Mar-a-Lago. "I was there with President Trump when he said 'We are declassifying this information.'"
Courts may ultimately have to decide how sweeping a sitting president's declassification powers can be. But U.S. officials familiar with the classification process to date point out that, unless and until the documents are stamped "Declassified" by the requisite agency, and following the submission of a written memo signed by the president, they have historically not been considered declassified.
Trump says "it was all declassified" — how declassification usually works - CBS News
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