Ummm - no, no paper trail is necessary. Educate yourself. The classification statutes/regulations *do not apply* to the President of the United States.
He has the inherent constitutional power, as commander-in-chief, to classify and declassify anything he wants, in any manner he wants.
Originally Posted by berryberry
Bx2-. Here's the information and how it works.
a U.S. president does have uniquely sweeping declassification abilities, though there is a process that involves written documentation and several other steps.
It's not the case that a president can declassify documents with just verbal instructions. His instruction to declassify a given document would first be memorialized in a written memo, usually drafted by White House counsel, which he would then sign.
Typically, the leadership of the agency or agencies with equities in the document would be consulted and given an opportunity to provide their views on the declassification decision. As the ultimate declassification authority, however, the president can decide to override any objections they raise.
Once a final decision is made, and the relevant agency receives the president's signed memo, the physical document in question would be marked — the old classification level would be crossed out — and the document would then be stamped, "Declassified on X date" by the agency in question.
Former Trump administration officials have claimed that Trump previously declassified the documents taken with him to Mar-a-Lago, but that the classification markings had not been updated.
"The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn't mean the information wasn't declassified," former Trump defense official Kash Patel told Breitbart in May, regarding other material that had earlier been removed from Mar-a-Lago. "I was there with President Trump when he said 'We are declassifying this information.'"
Courts may ultimately have to decide how sweeping a sitting president's declassification powers can be. But U.S. officials familiar with the classification process to date point out that, unless and until the documents are stamped "Declassified" by the requisite agency, and following the submission of a written memo signed by the president, they have historically not been considered declassified.
So if Trump didn't follow, or his ppl didn't follow the process, it isn't declassified.
These documents have no declassified stamp. Simple as a pimple bro.