GOP Rep Argues Trump Has ‘Different Set Of Rules’ With Classified Docs

UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 30: Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, right, chairman of the China Task Force, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., conduct a news conference on the China Task Force report in the Capitol’s Rayburn Room on Wednesday, September 30, 2020. The report outlines bipartisan action to combat threats from China. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the China Task Force conducts a news conference in the Capitol’s Rayburn Room on September 30, 2020. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) defended on Sunday ex-President Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort by claiming that Trump isn’t beholden to the same pesky rules as others.

McCaul, who sits on the House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees, told ABC’s “This Week” host Martha Raddatz that he “personally wouldn’t” have made the decision to take the records to Mar-a-Lago, “but I’m not the President of the United States.”

“He has a different set of rules that apply to him,” McCaul said. “The President can declassify a document on a moment’s notice, and we don’t have all the facts.”

“I know they were taken out of the White House while he was president, and whether or not he declassified those documents remains to be seen,” the GOP lawmaker added. “He says he did. I don’t have all the facts there.”

Frantically trying to fend off potential criminal prosecution, Trump did indeed claim last week that he had declassified all the materials the FBI found stashed away at Mar-a-Lago.

But whether Trump can simply declare on his fake Twitter app “Lucky I Declassified!” and thus avoid any legal consequences for lying to the feds about keeping classified records at his private resort remains to be seen.

On Monday, a federal judge approved Trump’s request for a third-party special master to review the seized documents.

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Notable Replies

  1. There’s just one little problem with this “Luckily I declassified” argument, which I don’t think anyone has noticed. Why would Drumpf have a “standing order” to declassify documents the moment they were removed from the White House? He was President. He didn’t need to declassify documents to read them. What would have been the point?

  2. “Fools rush in
    Where wise men fear to go”

  3. The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting.

  4. Avatar for jte jte says:

    Has anyone asked these idiots going on about how Trump can declassify whatever he wants what the implications would be of having some of the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets out in the open now? That’s what declassifying means! They’re essentially speculating that Trump has more or less permanently blown up America’s entire intelligence capability. We all know he hated those pinheads at the CIA and elsewhere in the IC, but JFC, what a way to go down.

  5. No one should ask a loyal and very ignorant ass-kissing trumpite from TX who’s up for reelection this year what he thinks. Beginning with he’s “The President.”

    “He has a different set of rules that apply to him,” McCaul said. “The President can declassify a document on a moment’s notice, and we don’t have all the facts.”

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