Donald Trump now says everyone brings their work home as he tries to come up with a new explanation why top secret documents were found at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
“As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different,” the statement from Trump’s office, read aloud on Fox News by John Solomon said.
“President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents, from the Oval Office to the residence. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them,” the statement added.
The statement went on to say that Trump, as president, had the power to classify and declassify documents and that he did not need approval from a “paper-pushing bureaucrat.”
While the president has the authority to declassify certain documents, there are procedures that need to be followed and it is not clear if Trump followed those required steps.
“He can’t just wave a wand and say it’s declassified. There has to be a formal process. That’s the only way the system can work,” Richard Immerman, a historian and an assistant deputy director of national intelligence in the Obama administration told NBC News.
Immerman said declassified documents are “all marked ‘declassified’ with the date they were declassified.” That is not the case with some of the documents returned to the National Archives from Mar-a-Lago this year, according NBC.
The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago during the search on Monday. Some of the materials recovered were marked as “top secret/SCI”, one of the highest levels of classification.
The search warrant unsealed on Friday revealed that the FBI is investigating Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other laws.
