However, 18 former Trump administration officials told CNN they had never heard of such an order while working for Trump and believed the allegations were plainly false. ing.
Some officials laughed at the idea. A senior government official called it “bullshit.” Two of Trump’s former chiefs of staff have gone on record to deny the allegations.
John Kerry, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for 17 months from 2017 to 2019, said “nothing comes close to an order given by a fool.” They simply shrugged and pushed the order forward without dying in the ditch trying to stop it. ”
Mick Mulvaney, who succeeded Kelly as acting White House chief of staff, also denied the idea, telling CNN that he “didn’t know about the general order” during his tenure.
Additionally, CNN spoke with former national security and intelligence officials, White House attorneys, and Justice Department officials. Taken together, their tenure spanned all four of his years in the Trump administration, and many were included in the declassification process or at least stood to be aware of such orders.
Officials continued to ridicule claims that Trump had a standing order to declassify documents that were brought out of the Oval Office and brought into the official residence.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” said a senior White House official. “If that’s true, where are the orders with his signature on them? If so, there would have been a tremendous backlash from the Intel community and the Pentagon. It would have become known to the Commission. .”
Many of the officials spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to discuss candidly the dynamics within the Trump administration and avoid potential backlash from the former president.
Comprehensive Claim of Declassification
Trump and his allies have made broad allegations of declassification after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago on August 8. As a result, federal agents seized 11 sets of classified documents from him. classification.
Last week, Trump claimed on his social media platform Truth Social that the documents in the box seized by the FBI at his home were “all declassified.”
John Solomon, editor-in-chief of the conservative website Just the News, was more specific in an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity last week. Solomon, who was nominated as one of the He removed them. ”
Kash Patel, an ally of Trump, a former national security officer in the Trump administration, and one of the former president’s nominees for the archives, also told Fox last week that Trump has “over and over again I have issued a release order,” he said. Patel said he didn’t know if the Mar-a-Lago box contained documents that were part of those orders.
A representative for the former president did not respond to a request for comment. Solomon and Patel also did not respond.
“It can’t be an idea in his head.”
Even if Trump has widely called for the documents to be declassified, there are specific processes the president must follow, the official said. Declassification must be commemorated and includes careful review and notification agencies such as the CIA, NSA, Department of Energy, Department of State, and Department of Defense.
“It’s not just in his head,” said David Raufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, who investigated Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified documents. “The program and officials would have been notified. There is no evidence that they were.”
Raufman’s successor, Jay Bratt, was one of four federal agents who met with Trump’s attorneys about the documents in Maralago in June, CNN previously reported.
A source familiar with Trump’s declassification within the White House said it’s true that the president has broad declassification powers, but Trump would have needed to make a record of it.
“As a practical matter, you have to prove it,” the source said. “If he says ‘I declassified something,’ the obvious question is ‘Did you tell anyone about it?’ The obvious concern is that this is all after the fact.”
Another source with knowledge of how the former president acted said it was Trump’s view that he could declassify information whenever he liked.
“He’s been advised that’s not how it works,” the source said.
“Complete Fiction”
Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton called the concept of a declassification order “complete fiction.”
Additionally, Olivia Troy, former homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, called the concept of blanket declassification “ridiculous.” “It’s ridiculous,” said another former senior intelligence official with a laugh.
A source familiar with White House records and declassification also said Trump’s allegations were “absurd” and that if such an order existed, it would be “Trump’s best kept secret.” Stated.
Multiple sources believe Trump’s claim that the documents were declassified was merely an apparent attempt to defend himself for bringing the documents to Mar-a-Lago. .
“There’s a declassification process and the president can’t just wave a magic wand,” said a former Trump administration official.
All 18 former Trump administration officials who spoke to CNN agreed. “It doesn’t work that way. There is a real process,” said a former White House national security official.
“If this existed, there had to be some way to commemorate it,” Bolton said on “The New Day.” How can people across government know what to declassify?”
“They would have resigned”
Former intelligence officials said intelligence leaders, such as then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, would have been informed of the declassification order.
“And they wouldn’t have allowed it,” the official said. “They would have resigned.”
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Government Secrets Project and classification expert, noted that the president has almost unlimited discretion over the classification and declassification of information. But Aftergood said the idea that documents were declassified based on location, such as being taken from the White House, simply “undermines credibility.”
“A document that is classified in Washington, D.C. is not classified in Florida. You might say that, but it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “And it calls into question the good faith of those who make such claims.”
Troy, Pence’s former homeland security adviser, said, “There is paper evidence that this overarching authority is the case, and in my two-and-a-half years in the White House on national security, I have never heard of it. There was no such thing. This was discussed.”
Troye resigned from the Trump administration in August 2020 and now leads an anti-Trump Republican group.
CNN political commentator Alyssa Farrar Griffin, who resigned as White House communications director shortly after the 2020 presidential election, called the sweeping declassification “very reckless.”
“The idea that presidents and former presidents can basically do whatever they want with America’s secrets poses immense risks to America’s national security,” Griffin said.
“We would know,” another former intelligence official said, adding that trying to claim the documents were automatically declassified was “like trying to close a barn door after a horse.” It’s something,” he added.
Gloria Borger, Evan Perez, Sara Murray and Gabby Orr of CNN contributed to this report.
Source: www.cnn.com
