Special counsel slams idea that Trump could claim classified docs as personal records - WEIS | Local & Area News, Sports, & Weather

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : As President of the United States, President Trump also had absolute and unreviewable authority to declassify documents and information ...
56% : Among them:"As President of the United States, President Trump was what is called an 'original classification authority' based on his power under the Constitution and related laws, which means that it was his authority that was used, by himself and others that he delegated it to, to classify information ...
56% : You heard evidence during the trial that President Trump exercised that authority, at times verbally and at times without using formal procedures, while he was President.
42% : Trump last year pleaded not guilty to all charges related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation's defense capabilities, and took steps to thwart the government's efforts to get the documents back.
39% : "Before this time, the second employee had never heard this theory from Trump.
37% : "Nevertheless, on February 10, 2022, Trump released a statement claiming in part, "I have been told I was under no obligation to give the material based on various legal rulings that have been made over the years," the filing said.
35% : No other witness recalled Trump espousing this theory until after the Judicial Watch president conveyed it to him in February 2022.
35% : "In their own filing responding to Judge Cannon's order, Trump's team put forward a variety of hypothetical jury instructions that would essentially guarantee Trump an immediate jury acquittal.
34% : Among that evidence, according to Smith, are interviews with Trump's own Presidential Records Act representatives and "numerous" high-ranking officials from the White House, none of which "had heard Trump say that he was designating records as personal,""To the contrary, every witness who was asked this question had never heard such a thing," Smith's office said.
20% : In their filing, the special counsel's office cited the 11th Circuit's previous opinion that they argued should make clear to Cannon that Trump had no personal interest over the documents seized in the FBI's 2022 search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
16% : -- Special counsel Jack Smith, responding on Tuesday to the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's classified documents case, urged her to reverse course on entertaining the idea that Trump had any personal ownership over the classified materials he has been charged with unlawfully possessing.
16% : According to the filing, even as Fitton was advising an unnamed Trump employee that the records Trump possessed at Mar-a-Lago "should have been characterized as personal," another employee urged Trump to reject such an argument and explained to him why.

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