Wednesday, April 03, 2024

Trump's Argument

Trump’s declassification and personalization by theft theory

"A president has sole authority under the PRA to categorize records as personal or presidential during his/her presidency. Neither a court nor a jury is permitted to make or review such a categorization decision. Although there is no formal means in the PRA by which a president is to make that categorization, an outgoing president’s decision to exclude what he/she considers to be personal records from presidential records transmitted to the National Archives and Records Administration constitutes a president’s categorization of those records as personal under the PRA." (Loose Cannon's scenario (b))

If this were true, the mere fact that Trump took the documents with him from the White House would inherently turn them into personal records.