A locked room in a basement may not be an authorized location, but it’s certainly more secure than any of the locations where the Biden documents have been discovered. In fact, investigators went to Mar-A-Lago, saw where the documents were stored, and only suggested that a lock be placed on the door. This potentially could be deemed a tacit authorization of the location where Trump was storing these documents.
In fact, the unsecured and unauthorized nature of the Biden home in Wilmington is underscored by the activities of the President’s son, Hunter; “President Biden’s formerly crack-addicted son described spending four days inside his father’s 6,850-square-foot residence with other family members as they awaited the results of the 2020 presidential election…(he) described the family ‘curled up on the couch together’ with other relatives ‘filtering in and out’ as returns trickled in…Hunter…added that his parents weren’t even home when the networks finally called the election for his father.”
Further, “(p)hotographs from 2017 obtained from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show the president’s son in the driver’s seat of his father’s 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray convertible, which the president says was kept in a ‘locked garage’ alongside classified documents from his time as vice president.”
There is one other argument that stands in former President Trump’s favor; his power to declassify documents while serving as President. According to the American Bar Association “Most national security legal experts dismissed the former president’s suggestion that he could declassify documents…(b)ut…legal guidelines support his contention that presidents have broad authority to formally declassify most documents that are not statutorily protected, while they are in office.”
While the ABA also asserts that “(i)n all cases…a formal procedure is required so governmental agencies know with certainty what has been declassified,” there is little legal authority to support this view. The one case cited by the ABA, New York Times v. CIA, states that “(d)eclassification cannot occur unless designated officials follow specified procedures.” However, the President of the United States, and a “designated official” are not necessarily the same. In fact, as the ABA admits, “the extent of a president’s legal authority to unilaterally declassify materials — without following formal procedures — has yet to be challenged in court.”
As discussed in The Hill, “it would be wrong to simply dismiss Trump’s assertion…Presidents have long claimed the authority to classify materials by dint of the president being the nation’s chief executive and commander in chief – the only official vested under Article II of the Constitution with ‘the executive power.’ Any other official involved in classifying materials does so, it is argued, because the president has delegated that authority to that official. And because the president has the underlying power to classify, he has by implication the unilateral authority to declassify.”
Whether Biden, as Vice President, could have declassified the documents found in his possession is not as clear-cut; “A March 2003 executive order signed by President George W. Bush empowered the vice president to classify sensitive materials. That same executive order grants declassification powers to ‘the official who authorized the original classification’ or ‘a supervisor official.’ Under the executive order, vice presidents are granted the power to declassify documents they classified themselves. But it’s unclear if the vice president would be viewed as ‘a supervisory official’ with the ability to declassify sensitive documents from the CIA and other intelligence agencies. That leaves it muddled whether a vice president can declassify documents.”
In any event, Biden doesn’t claim he declassified anything. Instead, “President Biden said...he was ‘surprised’ to learn…that his lawyers found classified government documents in his former office at a think tank in Washington, and he said he does not know what information they contain.”
Apparently, Joe Biden has never heard another old adage – “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in NYC
Illustration: Pixabay