Subject: Re: Trump on Tape w/ Classified Docs
albaby1: Something.

The Brennan Center has a good run-down.

One thing the president cannot do, though, is declassify information 'by thinking about it' ' i.e., without communicating that decision to anyone else. This conclusion follows not from any particular legal requirements but rather from the very essence of what it means to classify or declassify information. As noted above, these are two-step processes: first, an official determines whether the information requires protection, and second, the information is flagged to ensure that the protections are applied or removed. If an official claims to have classified or declassified information after taking the first step but not the second, it's like a customer saying she ordered food at a restaurant when she has decided what she wants to eat but hasn't told the waiter.

The article also notes that the classification status is immaterial with respect to documents at Mar-a-Lago:

Nor does the classification status of the documents affect Trump's criminal liability. The Department of Justice has publicly cited three criminal statutes that might apply in this investigation. None of them require that the information be classified. The most serious charge, the Espionage Act, criminalizes mishandling of information 'relating to the national defense.' Generally, judges consider classification to be strong evidence that information relates to the national defense. But unclassified or declassified information can still qualify ' particularly when the declassification happened entirely outside the usual process, involving no consultation with the relevant agencies about the national security implications of removing protections.


https://www.brennancenter.org/....