Even when he was president, Donald Trump did not have the legal authority to declassify a document related to US nuclear weapons he is accused of illegally possessing, security experts have said, contradicting the former US president’s claim.
The classified document, listed as number 19 on the charge that Trump endangered national security, can be declassified under the Atomic Energy Act only through a process that, by statute, involves the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.
For this reason, experts say, the central document is unique among the 31 of the prosecution, since the removal of secrecy from the others is regulated by an injunction.
“The claim that he (Trump) could have declassified is not relevant in the case of nuclear weapons information because it was classified not by executive order but by law,” said Steven Aftergood, government secrecy expert at the Federation of Scientists. . .
The special status of nuclear information further erodes what many legal experts call a weak defense focused on removing secrecy. Without providing evidence, Trump said he declassified the documents before taking them out of the White House.
Prosecutors are likely to argue that the declassification is irrelevant because Trump was charged under the Espionage Act, which predates secrecy and criminalizes the unauthorized retention of “national defense information,” a broad term that encompasses any secret that may be useful to the enemies of the nation.
Document no. 19 is marked “FRD” or Previously Confidential Data, a classification given to classified information involving the military’s use of nuclear weapons. The indictment described it as undated and “related to United States nuclear weapons”.
NUCLEAR DATA RULES
Trump, who pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, said he declassified while still in office the more than 100 secret documents he brought to his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, a claim repeated by Republican lawmakers and others. supporters. .
But Aftergood and other experts said the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1954 – under which the Department of Energy oversees the US nuclear arsenal – establishes a process for declassifying data on nuclear weapons, some of the most closely guarded secrets of the United States government.
“The statute is very clear. There is nothing that says the president can make that decision,” said a former US national security official familiar with the classification system, who asked not to be named.
Source: Terra
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