Mike Davis, a Republican activist who payments himself on-line as the previous Chief Counsel for Nominations on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and a former legislation clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, claims that Trump can declassify something he needs and easily taking them out of the White House declassified the paperwork in his possession.

“Before Attorney General Merrick Garland’s spin: The President of the United States has both the constitutional (and statutory) power to declassify anything he wants. If President Trump left the White House with classified records, they are declassified by his actions. Period,” Davis tweeted.

But that’s merely not true.

While presidents have broad authority to declassify absolutely anything, it’s not clear Trump ever really declassified the paperwork in his possession. If he had, it’s unlikely the National Archives could be so determined to get their fingers on them. Taking them out of the White House doesn’t routinely declassify them.

And whereas presidents can declassify nearly something, nuclear secrets and techniques nonetheless require greater than a single president to declassify, in accordance with authorized specialists who spoke with MSNBC final evening.

“There’s an entire another law that comes into play here. It’s called the Atomic Energy Act. It has its own classification regime and Donald Trump could not declassify those records on his own,” mentioned Bradley Moss, a nationwide protection lawyer.