Former top Pence aide Trump s declassification claim quot absurd quot
Former top Pence aide: Trump's declassification claim "absurd"
Sections
Axios Local
Axios gets you smarter faster with news & information that matters
About
Subscribe
Former Pence aide Trump' s declassification claim absurd
Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, speaks to members of the media outside the White House on Nov. 19, 2019. Photo: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images Former President Trump’s claim this week that presidents can declassify documents did not square with former vice president Mike Pence’s top aide. Driving the news: Marc Short, Pence's former chief of staff, called Trump’s assertion "absurd” in an interview with on Friday. What he’s saying: "That's absurd, obviously," Short said in response to a question about Trump’s remarks. "And I think it would make it very difficult for the intelligence community to have a classification system if that was the case."Short said neither he nor the former vice president shared that view or approach to handling classified materials. Catch up quick: Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that there “doesn’t have to be a process” for a president to deem a document declassified."If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, 'It's declassified,'" Trump said. "Even by thinking about it, because you're sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you're sending it. ... There can be a process, but there doesn't have to be." The big picture: Classified documents are at the center of the Department of Justice's investigation into Trump and the former president's ongoing with the DOJ. Since the FBI seized a trove of from Mar-a-Lago, some of which were labeled "top secret,” Trump has repeatedly claimed he declassified them while he was still in office. The that the records belong to the government, not Trump.After a Trump-appointed lower court judge ordered federal officials to halt their review of the materials, a ruled Wednesday that the DOJ could resume reviewing the recovered documents. Since the court ruling, intelligence officials have begun poring over the files as a part of a .