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Can a president legally remove declassified information from the White House?No, according to security experts. There are other laws that protect the country’s most sensitive secrets beyond how it is classified. For example, according to Aftergood, some of the intelligence and documents related to nuclear weapons can’t be declassified by the president. Aftergood said such information is protected by a different law, the Atomic Energy Act.
Another law — called “gathering, transmitting or losing defense information” — states it is illegal to remove documents related to national security from their proper place if it could risk the security of the country, no matter the classification level of the information.
“The classification is just one piece of the picture,” Aftergood said. There are other protections in the law that can make disclosure or unauthorized retention problematic or even criminal.
Removing certain property and documents from the White House would also violate the Presidential Records Act, which requires presidents to preserve official records during their time in office. The act says that records from a presidency are public property and do not belong to the president or the White House team. Violating the records act would be a civil, not a criminal, offense.
Speaking of violations, what laws did the warrant say may have been broken?The warrant lists the codes of three U.S. laws that may have been violated. That does not mean all of them were broken, however, or that these are the only laws that could have been violated in connection with the FBI’s investigation. The laws pertain to destruction or moving of government documents and carry criminal penalties.
Section 793 — “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information” — is known as the Espionage Act. It’s a broad law, and violating it does not necessarily mean that someone committed espionage. The law states it is illegal to remove documents or records related to national security from their proper place if it could risk the security of the country.
“It’s almost a misnomer, because when people hear ‘espionage,’ they think the classic definition of espionage spying,” Ali said. “But here it does not have anything to do with that, as far as we know. This may not be the cloak and dagger type of espionage.”
The second, Section 1519 — “Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy" — criminalizes the destruction or hiding of documents to obstruct an investigation. The warrant does not detail which investigation the removal of these documents could be obstructing. It carries a prison sentence of no more than 20 years.
And the third, Section 2071 — “Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally” — makes illegal the willful theft or destruction of any government document. Every offense of this act could carry a sentence of up to three years of prison. A person convicted of violating this section is barred from holding federal office, according to the law.
Government officials who have been accused in the past of mishandling classified information include David H. Petraeus, a CIA director during the Obama administration, and Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, a national security adviser during the Clinton administration. Both eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges for unlawfully removing secret documents.
Read more:-
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/13/trump-warrant-classified-answers/________________
Trump says "it was all declassified" — how declassification usually worksAs for the president's power to declassify materials, here's some background on how it works, according to current and former intelligence officials familiar with the declassification process.
First, a U.S. president does have uniquely sweeping declassification abilities, though there is a process that involves written documentation and several other steps.
It's not the case that a president can declassify documents with just verbal instructions. His instruction to declassify a given document would first be memorialized in a written memo, usually drafted by White House counsel, which he would then sign.
Typically, the leadership of the agency or agencies with equities in the document would be consulted and given an opportunity to provide their views on the declassification decision. As the ultimate declassification authority, however, the president can decide to override any objections they raise.
Once a final decision is made, and the relevant agency receives the president's signed memo, the physical document in question would be marked — the old classification level would be crossed out — and the document would then be stamped, "Declassified on X date" by the agency in question.
It is also unclear how central a legal question the classification process and the president's role in it could be. As the New York Times points out, none of the statutes cited in the warrant rely on whether the records were classified or not. The search warrant signed by the Florida magistrate judge entails items "illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. § § 793, 2071, or 1519."
That first code, Section 793, and more commonly known as the Espionage Act, applies to defense information. It applies, for instance, to material illegally removed "from its proper place of custody" or that is lost, stolen or destroyed.
The next statute, Section 2071, bans concealing, removing, mutilating or destroying records filed with U.S. courts. And the final one, Section 1519, prohibits concealing, destroying or mutilating records to obstruct or influence an investigation.
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-classified-records/
