Comments by "" (@charlesvan13) on "Jonathan Turley: This Trump indictment is a whole different ballgame" video.

@Blue Jazmine "EXACTLY HIS WORDS!!!" So he could just say that "these documents are declassified" in court. Those would exactly be his words.
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DimebagVision And? Are you making a point? Presidents write memoranda for their records. The president's constitutional authority on document classification doesn't depend on memos, duhh.
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This isn't on the level. The Pres. Records Act is not a criminal statute. The archiving of presidential records is supposed to be a civil process.
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The documents at Mar-a-Lago are declassified.
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Dude. Biden had more classified documents in his garage and office, than an ex-president, and had no authority to bring them there or to possess them. Do Democrats have any values that aren't just a political pose?
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The presidential records process, as codified in the Pres. Records Act, is civil law, not criminal. The correct procedure if they have a problem with it is to file a law suit. This is settled in case law. See the 2012 case of Clinton vs Judicial Watch. It's the Nat. Archives that is out of line, along with the Banana Republic Biden administration. The constitutional power resides with the president. The Nat. Archives are just bureaucrats. Same with the FBI and DOJ. The authority of document classification is under the president.
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If you went over the conversations Obama has had, you will find that he has mentioned classified information. Miley discussed the same topic in a book. This was Trump telling associates that Miley was lying. And Miley is just a general. If Trump has no authority then Miley should be prosecuted for his book.
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@jay-day It also doesn't prove that it was classified. The president's records are generally all declassified. Because that's what's necessary when it's taken from the SCIF. This will die in the courts. Because the constitutional authority of classification resides with the president. The president still knows all the classified info from his term. He's not under some gag-order.
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For that reason the indictment avoids the word "classified". It will be done after a long drawn out process, because that's how the bureaucratic state operates. Everything a president takes from the SCIF is declassified. This is all pretty silly charging him under the espionage act--this is a records dispute, which isn't a criminal matter.
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@SKYRIDGENIGERIANDWARFS "It’s that he stole military secrets to sell to other countries" And you have to be a Rachel Maddow viewer to believe that happened.
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@makavelismith "You can't just think that they re declassified." The president pretty much can. He has the sole power of declassification as Commander in Chief.
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@chroma1001 No. The constitutional power of classification rests with the president. This was settled in SCOTUS case 1988 Navy vs Egan. A process would be for record keeping. The constitutional power rests with the President.
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@makavelismith The Nat. Archives is just in charge of storage. The president decides what are personal and thus not "presidential records", and the president decides what to declassify. The declassified documents can be stored elsewhere. Eg. Obama took them to a warehouse in Chicago. And this is NOT a criminal process. The current administration has turned it into a criminal process to get Trump.
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@pW-kb8xs "he did not declassify them," You can't say that. The president has universal power to declassify. The president normally declassifies all presidential records. What Trump says isn't legally binding. The power of the president of declassify is absolute, so the courts have considered that act of taking docs from the White House to be declassification. That's also why this is not going to survive in court, and why Trump is not nervious.
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@makavelismith " You might want to tell that to the Archivist of the United States" This difference is that the Archivist is a bureaucrat. It's the president who has constitutional authority. That's why this is lame, from a legal standpoint. And why it will fail. Why do you think the Pres. Records Act is a civil law, not criminal. In other words, if the Archivist wants something, then he can sue. Bill Clinton was sued for taking tapes with classified material, in 2012. The court ruled: 1) He had the right to take them. That the president could declare anything records to be personal. 2) The act of taking them amounted to a declassification.
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If you were paying attention you'd notice that Trump is not worried about this. He was playing golf just after the indictment was announced. He knows this is just politics and not real criminal law. The presidential records process is civil law, not criminal. The courts side with the president, because that's where the executive constitutional power resides. The Nat. Archives is just a bureaucracy. It has no constitutional authority.
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@nosuchthing8 "they still can't locate some of those documents. And some of them are not in a computer format. Just available on a scif." Then how do they know such document ever existed?
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@razordu30 Everything the president takes is implicitly declassified. The Nat. Archives doesn't have greater authority than the president. The president has constitutional authority, the Archives is a bureaucracy with power under the Pres. Records Act, which also gives the president authority. Under the Pres. Records Act the Archives could file a lawsuit over the records. This is purely political, not a real criminal case. For one thing, it's over presidential records, but doesn't even mention the Pres. Records Act. The same prosecutor similarly beclowned himself in his case against John Edward---another attempt to turn a civil process(campaign finance records) into a criminal matter.
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@newsduke No. There's no process for the president. Because the President has the constitutional power of classification.
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@newsduke That's not true. A Constitutional power cannot depend on a bureaucracy that is not even in the Constitution. It was established in 1988 Navy vs Egan, that the President's authority of classification/declassification is absolute. The President can declassify just by speaking or releasing classified information.
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That doesn't change the fact that everything the president takes from the SCIF is declassified.
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James Madison The president gets to decide which documents to keep, under the Pres. Records Act and constitutional law. The normal procedure is for them to file a civil lawsuit. The reason this is criminal is because the Biden administration is trying to take out Biden's top challenger. Clinton was sued in 2012 for taking tapes. The court ruled that 1) The president decides what are personal records. 2) The act of taking them from the White House was a declassification.
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@scott596 This is the political establishment criminalizing the presidential records process to prevent Trump from winning a fair election. Every president, when they leave, declares some documents "personal records", the rest are "presidential records", which are stored, to later be made available for FOIA requests. Those presidential records that are taken from the White House are declassified. This is not supposed to be a criminal process. But these people are terrified of Trump. It's there fault for running a candidate as weak and old as Biden.
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@stephencooper3583 Trump knows that to take something from the White House, it had to be declassified. And also that, as president, he could declassify anything. You know, the Democrats are really bad at propaganda. All you have to know is that the president has plenary power to declassify. This is settled Constitutional law, eg. SC 1988 Navy vs. Egan. The folder doesn't mean squat. At the bar at Mar-a-Lago is a folder that says "Classified, Presidential daily briefing". The label doesn't make something classified.
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@scott596 These Trump scandals are so annoying. The president can declassify at will. The claim that they're "classified documents" are media lies. Bill Clinton took classified tapes, and was sued over it. The judge ruled that he had the power to do that, and the act of taking them from the White House was a declassification.
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