Actually, Trump’s declassification claim might not be that outlandish

Nearly 20 years ago, Justice Department prosecutors wrestled with the vexing question of whether President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney could unilaterally authorize Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby to leak to select journalists the key findings of a then-highly-classified intelligence community-wide report on Iraq’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

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Libby’s claim of the direct but unrecorded disclosure order from Bush and Cheney may have contributed to a decision by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald not to charge Libby with releasing classified information to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and others…

“The Libby case might have been the first time in memory that the question of unilateral presidential declassifications arose,” said Steven Aftergood, a leading authority on classified information policy. “It was giving one-time permission to a particular individual to disclose information to another particular individual … It highlights the fact that the president purports to, or does, stand outside of the classification system.”

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