Former U.S. president Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, U.S., September 17, 2022. REUTERS/Gaelen MorseSept 22 - Donald Trump's bid to impede a criminal investigation into his possession of documents taken from the White House has begun to unravel, legal experts said, after courtroom setbacks including doubts expressed by judges about the former U.S. president's claim that he declassified records seized at his Florida home.
At issue in the investigation - one of several legal woes entangling Trump as he considers another run for the presidency in 2024 - is whether he broke federal laws preventing the destruction or concealment of government records and the unauthorized possession of national defense information. The Justice Department is also looking into whether Trump unlawfully tried to obstruct the investigation.
"If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it's declassified, even by thinking it," Trump told Fox News on Wednesday. "You're sending it to Mar-a-Lago or wherever you're sending it, and there doesn't have to be a process." Dearie pressed Trump's lawyers to make clear whether they plan to assert that the records had been declassified as Trump claims."Unless Trump can come up with real evidence saying he went through some kind of declassification procedure and declassified this stuff, there's no way he can prevail on this, and if he had that evidence his lawyers would have presented it," said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University.
Trump is in the same WhatsApp group with dictators
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