A predictable reponse: Top secret? How do we know they are top secret? Trump says they aren't top secret. Why should we believe the government? Seed intense distrust against any official who takes a stance against Dear Leader, and the mind will invent all sorts of rationalizations to continue to defend him.
So, it appears that Trump is going to claim that all these documents were declassified. That should be fairly easy to confirm I would think. There must be some kind of official procedure to declassify a document. There must be some record of what has been declassified. Of course if it turns out the documents weren’t declassified, Trump will just say it was an honest error, and it’s no big deal.
Isn't all of it basically on each document? If the document says "Classified", then it's classified. If the document says "Top Secret", then it's top secret. If the document says "Declassified", then it's been declassified. If you just went on someone's word that a document has been declassified but still shows on the document as "Classified" or "Top Secret", then what kind of f-ing system is that? No one would know what is what. There would be no point to any of it. It would just be a mess.
And, before the usual apologists and apparatchiks start chiming in with "bu... bu... butt... OBAMA," the National Archives has preempted them:
It doesn't really matter if the documents had been declassified. They are not Trump's documents. They belong to the National Archives and he has no right to be holding their (our, the people's) property. So the search is entirely justified by the results -- they found stuff that belonged to the government. That some of the documents were classified or top secret just makes everything worse. But it's not the linchpin on whether or not Trump had done anything wrong in the first place. It's absolutely clear he did something wrong.
Yes there is an official procedure to declassify a document. It doesnt matter what he thinks or anyone else for that matter. For Trump to be in serious trouble, it must be proven he kept the documents for malicious reasons. What actions will be taken is a different story.
NEW via Breitbart (?!): Trump under investigation per search warrant for: 18 USC 2071 — Concealment, removal or mutilation--Subject to 3 years max sentence and cannot hold office in USA 18 USC 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defence information--10 years max 18 USC 1519 — Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations--20 years max
Why? I am not sure sensitive and top secret documents that don't belong to Trump fall into the "malicious intent" category. Maybe I'm not correct. The bottom line is the documents no matter what they are don't belong to him. It's basically stolen property that he's refused to hand over on multiple occasions.
We are at the part of the defense where it goes from okay he did it but trump didn't mean it or it is not that bad.
