The very fact that these documents were present at Mar-a-Lago means they couldn’t have been classified," the former president's office stated. "As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different. President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents including classified documents from the Oval Office to the residence.
"He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified," the statement added. "The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the President of the United States. The idea that some paper-pushing bureaucrat, with classification authority delegated BY THE PRESIDENT, needs to approve of declassification is absurd."
Two former senior aides who worked for Trump in the latter half of his term said they were aware that Trump routinely took documents to the residence rather than return them to the Staff Secretary or the intelligence official who provided them. Asked whether there was a standing order, one former official "I don't know anyone or anything that disputes that."
Ordinarily, documents declassified by a president are later retrieved and marked declassified, usually by crossing a line through the prior classification markings. But former top aides to prior presidents acknowledged the president's power to declassify was absolute and at times resulted in instant declassification decisions.
One prior administration official related an instance where his boss, while talking to a foreign leader, gave top-secret information to the leader, declassifying simply by sharing what he had seen in a top-secret marked document. Another official related an instance he witnessed in which a president, during a meeting, received a top secret document and one official got up to leave because his clearance was only at the secret level.
"The president instantly approved that staffer to stay and consume the top-secret intelligence because it benefited the president's work at that moment," the person told Just the News.