Donald Trump is now arguing that he used his authority to declassify the material seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago before he left office.
But the New York Times reports none of the three criminal laws cited in the search warrant “turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified.”
More from the New York Times: “Two of the laws that a search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago this week referenced — Sections 1519 and 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code — make the taking or concealment of government records a crime regardless of whether they had anything to do with national security.”
“For another, laws against taking or hoarding material with restricted national-security information — which generally carry heavier penalties than theft of ordinary documents — do not always line up with whether the files are technically classified.”
