DOJ Claims Trump Did Not Declassify Documents. Oh, Really?

AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

Last week, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice claimed in a court filing that Trump did not formally declassify the documents that he had stored at Mar-a-Lago, and requested a partial stay of the order to appoint a special master to oversee the reviewing of the documents.

Advertisement

On Wednesday, an appeals court agreed and granted the Biden administration access to the documents again.

“In a stark repudiation of Donald Trump’s legal arguments, a federal appeals court on Wednesday permitted the Justice Department to resume its use of classified records seized from the former president’s Florida estate as part of its ongoing criminal investigation,” the Associated Press reported Wednesday. “The ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit amounts to an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department, clearing the way for investigators to continue scrutinizing the documents as they consider whether to bring criminal charges over the storage of top-secret records at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. In lifting a hold on a core aspect of the department’s probe, the court removed an obstacle that could have delayed the investigation by weeks.”

The panel argued that there is “no evidence that any of these records were declassified.”

Really? No evidence that any of the records were declassified? There are some huge holes in this argument.

For starters, Kash Patel, a former top Trump administration official, told Breitbart News in a phone interview in May that the documents were declassified and that he was present for the declassification.

Advertisement

“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” Patel explained. “The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified,” Patel added. “I was there with President Trump when he said, ‘We are declassifying this information.’”

Then there’s the fact that on January 19, 2021, President Trump released a presidential memorandum titled, “Memorandum on Declassification of Certain Materials Related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.” So, clearly, there’s documentation of the process showing that, at the very least, documents related to Crossfire Hurricane were, in fact, declassified.

Recommended

Trending on PJ Media Videos

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Advertisement
Advertisement