Rescinded Trump ‘declassification’ tweet is accepted

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Wednesday accepted a White House statement as rescinding President Donald Trump’s tweets that called for the “total Declassification” of all documents in the government’s investigation of Russia’s intervention in the 2016 U.S. election.

But U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton of the District of Columbia chided the president for being careless, saying the commander in chief’s words caused confusion on a matter of national security.

“It is unfortunate that we are in this situation because, obviously, whenever there’s a reference to the declassification of classified information, the words spoken should be artfully spoken so there’s no ambiguity as to what the intention was,” Walton said. “Obviously that’s not what occurred here.”

Walton ruled in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by BuzzFeed, CNN and the Electronic Privacy Information Center seeking fuller release of materials related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The groups sought an emergency review of material withheld by the government after Trump tweeted on Oct. 6: “I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”

Justice Department attorneys last week told the judge that the White House counsel’s office notified the department that despite Trump’s statement, “There is no order requiring wholesale declassification or disclosure of documents at issue.”

Walton — a 2001 appointee of George W. Bush and former presiding judge of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — rejected that explanation, directing the department to produce a declaration from a person who had conferred directly with the president.

In a court filing Tuesday, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows declared that Trump did not mean what his tweet said.

In a teleconference hearing Wednesday, Justice Department trial lawyer Courtney Enlow said the May 23, 2019, authorization was not an order but a delegation of discretionary authority to Attorney General William Barr as he conducted the review into Trump’s claims that he was improperly spied on by Obama administration appointees.