The big picture: Trump has offered a variety of reasons to justify why a trove of documents, including some marked “top secret” and “confidential,” were at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
Trump and his team claimed he had a “standing order” dictating that documents moved from the Oval Office to his residence were considered declassified after they were removed, Axios’ Shawna Chen writes. Former national security adviser John Bolton and former attorney general Bill Barr disputed the claim. Trump and his team have made public comments referring to Trump’s declassification of the documents, but have been careful not to actually raise the claim in legal proceedings, the Washington Post reported.
What they say: As part of the grand jury investigation into Trump’s handling of the records, the grand jury issued a subpoena on May 11 seeking all “classified” documents, the court filing said.
As part of an “exchange of correspondence” in which Trump’s team asked for an extension of time to respond to the subpoena, it asked the Justice Department to “consider some ‘principles,’” including the claim that a President has absolute authority to declassify documents (if and counsel did not actually allege that FPOTUS had done so),” the filing added. “The government notes that the subpoena sought ‘classified’ documents, and therefore a complete response would not depend on whether the responsive documents were allegedly declassified,” the Justice Department claimed in the court filing.
Worth noting: Even if Trump had declassified the documents, they would still have to go to the National Archives, according to Bloomberg. Go deeper: The Presidential Records Act and the Trump search explained
