The National Archives Records Administration has informed former President Donald Trump it is handing over 16 presidential records to the special counsel in charge of the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents. The records indicate Trump and his top advisers were aware of the declassification process while he was president, seemingly contradicting some of Trump’s recent claims that documents were automatically declassified when he left office.
“The 16 records in question all reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally, concerning whether, why, and how you should declassify certain classified records,” National Archive Records Administration Acting Archivist Debra Wall said in a letter to Trump.
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Trump and his allies have insisted that as president, Trump did not have to follow a specific process to declassify documents. Trump repeated that claim at a CNN town hall on Wednesday, May 10.
“And, by the way, they become automatically declassified when I took them,” Trump said.
According to the letter, Trump tried to block special counsel Jack Smith from accessing the records on classified documents by asserting “constitutionally based privilege.” Wall rejected the argument in the letter, stating that the special counsel’s office “is prepared to demonstrate with specificity to a court, why it is likely that the 16 records contain evidence that would be important to the grand jury’s investigation.”
The records are set to be handed over to Smith on Wednesday, May 24 “unless prohibited by an intervening court order.”
