> enrich whoever

... whomever ...

The article talks about classification but this isn't really about classification or national security. It's about who has the fundamental rights over the documents after all that is sorted out. It's about can congress or the public force documents that embarrass or incriminates the president (after sufficient time and declassification has happened)

This was true up until the Supreme Court decided that executive power is not at all bounded by legislative power. Since all classification procedures and authority are directly derived from the president's executive power, the president does in fact have all of what you say he doesn't. Including the ability to classify/unclassify documents as legal cover.

Let's be honest here, this calvinball only applies to one political party. The other can't wear a tan suit or forgive a small fraction of student loans.

The shorter name is corruption. It's not any more complicated than that.

We need to remember that there is a mechanism to address this kind of corruption, which is impeachment and removal, and by failing to even consider it Congress has endorsed the behavior as well.

If there is ever any reconciliation they also need to be held accountable.

Roman emperors at least had the dignity to go after rich senators.

The term is 'sultanism'

The results of that investigation were squashed by Judge Eileen Canon in Florida claiming the special prosecutor was not legal. Jack Smith has bent over backwards to not release information based on the court's decision to bar its release.

However, Trump's case against the BBC has become an interesting one. The judge overseeing this case recently stated that the BBC can call Jack as a witness potentially allowing an end run around Judge Canon's release of Jack's report.

I mean, read the decision. Any evidence that proves whether a contested event or action was "official" or not is inadmissible in court. The Courts cannot investigate the President's motives when deciding whether an action was official or unofficial, and prosecutors cannot use evidence of immune official presidential acts to establish criminal liability, even when prosecuting separate, unofficial conduct.

We simply HAVE to take the Executive's word for whether an action was official or not.

The question is not around classification but of ownership and especially of the ownership of the documents after the president leaves office. The argument is that the documents generated during the presidency are the personal property of the president.

I wonder what is causing the centralisation around the executive branch in Western democracies? While the US is the more extreme example of the phenomenon, in the UK power has been consolidating in Number 10 for decades and the PM role has become more presidential than tradition dictates; compare say Tony Blair who was a very personal leader with Clement Attlee whose leadership style was more collaborative. The two systems are very different constitutionally, so it feels like there's broader factors causing this.

Congress created the laws which allow classification & declassification. The president is the authority over what gets classified, but should still be required to follow the procedures for doing so.

Declassifying documents is completely within Trump's purview, but surely selling classified documents runs afoul of the emoluments clause in Article II, Section 1.

It's less about who is doing it rather than that a US president is doing it at all. Obviously, once you find the right person, things can change quickly. Finding the right person when the other two branches of government are controlled by the same party, you can speed run the end of democracy. This is the part that's really shameful to me more so than just a single megalomaniac POTUS. The fact Congress has just capitulated its duties while overtly corrupt members of SCOTUS flaunt jurisprudence is something I thought we'd never have to see.

It makes me happy every day that his clock is running out. Clocks. All the clocks running out.

But we need to do some serious rethink and work on curbing the power of the POTUS.

Grump will cry foul on anything, because that's what he does. Normally for someone at his point in life, this would be confined to yelling at nursing home staff for the food being too cold and having the wrong color skin (because their family certainly wouldn't be visiting). But unfortunately, there are way too many gullible fools in this country who felt validated by his crying.

While Im not going to dissuade people from voting, everyone should be prepared for the following reality: true and fair elections in US very like to be a thing of the past.

There are 3 big factors in play

* 2020 attempted coup gave the Republicans valuable information on what to do this time around. Basically, the game is to put US into legal limbo and remain in power. They know nobody on the democrat side is going to think about using armed forces, and they are not going to use armed forces to keep their public image and keep economy from panicking, so they are going to just declare some emergency and keep power under the pretense of fixing that emergency. Reminder that Supreme Court is on his side.

* Trump has shown that he has no issue with having a private army operating with extrajudicial authority in public. Now imagine with what he is ok doing with a non-public army. You should fully expect people going against him to get "arrested" under some made up charges.

* Even with Trump gone, there are smarter, younger, non senile conservatives ready to take his place and grab power and do the same things, with way less mistakes. Vance is right up there with him.

As such, even if everyone gets out and votes blue, in the end its all pointless. Trump can get impeached, convicted, and either Supreme Court says nah, or he just won't leave. In 2028, he (or Vance) will declare election fraud again and do it successfully this time to remain in power.

And even if somehow Dems win the house and presidency, and manage to pack supreme court to take control of all the branches, the thing is the will be left with a insanely shitty situation to clean up that will result in economic downturn, and the idiots in US will vote republican again in 2032.

For selling his own personal documents? That's crazy talk.

Edit: This is obviously a politically charged topic, so I should be more clear. If we accept the (absurd) premise that a president can sell national secrets on eBay because they're his own personal property, I'd be mildly surprised if a court found that he had to give the proceeds to the state.

So national interest doesn't exist? It's all at the whim of a demented money grabber, just because a small majority of the voters (if there really was a majority) got riled up?

I know this isn’t an argument but when I read this my first thought was: How can a real person hold this opinion?

> The point of secret classification isn't to restrict trusted people - but to restrict unathorized access. And highest person in chain of command naturally has full authority to do as he sees the situation fit

First of all -- what? The exact legal authority between the President and Congress here is murky, yes (see https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RS21900). But it's completely ridiculous to claim that the only criterion for authorization is that someone thinks a person ought to be authorized.

This is unitary executive thinking, grounded in the principle that, because the president is the sole and chief authority and executor of the law, the president may do just about anything in that capacity. It's utter unconstitutional nonsense, no matter what our (openly compromised by lobbyists) Supreme Court justices say.

The latter point is "not accentuated enough" because it's secondary to the primary point, which supersedes it. No the president's whim is not the same as executing the federal laws created by Congress within the framework of the constitution. It a mind-bendingly anti-American, anti-Constitutional line of reasoning on display here.