A May 25 letter from one of Trump's lawyers attached as an exhibit to the search affidavit asserts a commander-in-chief has absolute authority to declassify whatever they want.
WASHINGTON — A newly unsealed FBI document about the investigation at Mar-a-Lago not only offers new details about the probe but also reveals clues about the arguments former President Donald Trump's legal team intends to make.
It's perhaps not surprising that Trump's legal team might look for ways to distinguish a former president from other citizens given the penalties imposed over the years for mishandling handling government secrets, including a nine-year prison sentence issued to a former National Security Agency contractor who stored two decades' worth of classified documents at his Maryland home."When someone is no longer president, they're no longer president.
No matter the outcome of that latest issue, the affidavit makes clear that investigators are focused on potential violations of three felony statutes, including an Espionage Act provision that criminalizes the willful retention or transmission of national defense information. Harold Martin, the ex-NSA contractor, pleaded guilty in 2019 to storing troves of classified information inside his home, car and storage shed, including handwritten notes describing the NSA's classified computer infrastructure.
It notes that a president has the absolute authority to declassify documents, though it doesn't actually say — as Trump has asserted — that he did so with the records seized from his home. It also says the"primary" law criminalizing the mishandling of classified information does not apply to the president and instead covers subordinate employees and officers.
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