The Department of Justice says that it executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago to protect critical nuclear weapons and signals intelligence documents, but Donald Trump's new defense is that the entire world is already free to view the documents.
On Friday evening, Trump's organization reportedly gave an exclusive new statement to far-right writer John Solomon, who proceeded to read it on-air on Fox News. Solomon is one of Trump's representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration, along with Kash Patel.
"As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different. President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents including classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence," Trump admitted, even though some of the documents recovered are supposed to remain in a SCIF or "Secure, Compartmentalized Information Facility."
"He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified," the unnamed spokesperson said.
That would mean that all of the documents in question are now in the public domain.
"The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the President of the United States. The idea that some paper-pushing bureaucrat, with classification authority delegated by the president, needs to approve of declassification is absurd," the statement falsely claimed.
The president does not have the power to unilaterally declassify nuclear weapons information.
