Fox Contributor: Trump was too busy with the January 6 insurrection to properly declassify documents
Jonathan Turley: With the January 6 riot, “the question is whether there was enough time to go through this process”
Published
Citation From the August 12, 2022, edition of Fox News' Fox and Friends
MIKE EMMANUEL (FOX NEWS ANCHOR): Jonathan, I'm wondering as someone who has handled this kind of information over the years, if you are familiar with the process of a president on his way out of office declassifying it. We know he has the power to declassify lots of stuff, but how quickly can that happen?
JONATHAN TURLEY (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): This is where it gets a little bit curious because we – you know, this was a very chaotic time obviously in January, you had the January 6 riot, you had all the controversies, and then you had all these boxes being removed with the president. The question is whether there was enough time to go through this process where you have to communicate with the intelligence community to declassify material. There is no question as to the authority of the president to declassify material. There are regulations, but his authority is constitutional, he has a right to declassify. So this could be a conflict between regulations and inherent authority of the president. The question is the specificity with which the declassification occurred. Were these on a list, for example, that was declared declassified? It is possible that there was an invoice or list as the boxes were prepared and the President sought to confirm or to state that they were declassified. That does not seem like a good basis for a criminal charge. If that is what occurred, I want, again, to see that affidavit as to why that was deemed a potential criminal act.