Trump: I could declassify documents by thinking of it

Former US leader speaks of raid in first TV interview since FBI seized classified files from Florida estate

DONALD TRUMP said presidents can “declassify anything” simply by “thinking about it” in his first TV appearance since the FBI seized top-secret documents from his Florida home.

The former US president said he had discovered the FBI had also seized his will in the raid last month, accusing the bureau of doing a “horrible thing”.

The unprecedented raid led to the recovery of 11,000 government records, including about 100 marked classified, from Mar-a-lago, Mr Trump’s primary residence and private members’ club.

In his first TV interview since, Mr Trump, 76, said he had “declassified everything” he took from the White House after leaving office. He told Fox News: “There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it. If you’re the president of the United States you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified’. Even by thinking about it,” he said.

Presidents do have the authority to declassify information, but this typically follows a process to ensure there are no associated security risks.

Former officials in the Trump administration scoffed at the idea that he could have issued a blanket order. Bill Barr, former attorney general, previously said the suggestion was “almost worse than taking the documents”.

He said: “If in fact he sort of stood over scores of boxes, not really knowing what was in them and said, ‘I hereby declassify everything in here,’ that would be such an abuse.”

In his interview, Mr Trump defended storing documents at Mar-a-lago, saying that the property is manned by Secret Service agents.

He also suggested it was the General Services Administration which dealt with packing the boxes that went from the White House to Mar-a-lago.

Yesterday, the agency insisted they were only involved in shipping boxes and were not aware of the contents.

Mr Trump also described his shock at learning of the raid. He said his lawyers had been having “very nice discussions” about the return of documents with government officials, adding: “All of a sudden we got hit very hard by the FBI. They took a lot of things. I think they took my will.”

The prerecorded interview came ahead of a US appeals court ruling allowing the FBI to use the documents in its ongoing criminal probe. The ruling was a setback for Mr Trump, who had sought an injunction which could have delayed the investigation.

In the interview, Mr Trump also appeared to suggest that agents could have been looking for Hillary Clinton’s emails during the raid on his home. Mrs Clinton was investigated in 2016 over her use of a private server for her emails during her time as US secretary of state.

“There’s a lot of speculation because of the severity of the FBI raiding Mar-alago, were they looking for the Hillary Clinton emails,” Mr Trump said.