Only Low-Information Democrats Believe the "Trump Stole Classified Documents!" Story

The “Trump Stole Classified Documents” story is what we used to call “boob-bait for the Bubbas”… it’s only believable and scandalous to low-information, low-IQ Democrat partisans. 

Consider: (1) Trump was President from January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2021. (2) During that period, he was invested with the complete power of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. This is called the “unitary executive” principle and is not controversial in the law. (3) As the sole repository of the complete power of the Executive Branch, President Trump had plenary authority to classify or declassify any Executive Branch records at any time. Again, this is not controversial as a matter of Constitutional law. 

(4) President Trump also had plenary authority to designate White House records as “personal,” meaning he could take them with him after he left the White House.  Again: not controversial. 

(5) Finally, as President, and as the Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief, Trump didn’t have to report to anyone. He didn’t have to explain why he was designating documents as personal, or why he was declassifying. Like it or not, that’s how the system works. He’s the President. He doesn’t have to ask permission. (6) Moreover, he doesn’t have to follow any particular procedure. He doesn’t have to tell anyone. He doesn’t have to make a notation in some other record of what he’s done. Again, like it or not, that’s how the system works. No bureaucrat in the Executive Branch has any power whatsoever to tell the President, “No, you can’t declassify that,” or, “No, you can’t designate that as personal,” or, “No, that’s not the right way to do it, you have to do it this way.” 

(7) As a matter of Constitutional law, in fact, the President can declassify documents and declare them personal for any reason and in any manner. He can do it by his conduct. If, for instance, the President treats a document as declassified – say, by revealing it in the course of negotiations with a foreign power – it is by virtue of that conduct automatically declassified. (8) The same goes for designating documents as “personal.” If the President treats White House documents as personal – for instance, by instructing his staff to pack them up to take them to his private residence as he’s preparing to leave office – that may be inadvisable, or stupid, or bad politics, it may set a bad precedent, I might counsel him not to do it, because he’d get lots of bad press; but it’s not illegal. He’s still the President, he still has the plenary power to declassify and declare documents personal records. End of story. 

To believe otherwise, you have to, in essence, believe that there is some super-executive authority over the President with the power to control Executive Branch documents and to declare certain documents classified once and for ever. But there isn’t, no matter how much the permanent bureaucrats in the Deep State apparatus and their mouthpieces in the media want you to think so. You can impeach a President, and you can vote him out of office; but you can’t arrest him for exercising powers that the Constitution vests in him.