Trump Says He Could Declassify Documents ‘By Thinking About It’

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that he “did declassify” documents at the center of the FBI raid targeting Mar-a-Lago last month.

In an interview with Fox News, the former president said, “Different people say different things but 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.”

“Because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or wherever you’re sending it. There doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn’t have to be,” Trump said. “You’re the president … you make that decision” on whether to declassify, he said.

Prosecutors have said in court filings that some 100 documents that were found at Trump’s Florida home and resort were marked as classified or top secret. The FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago estate after a search earlier this year uncovered the documents.

The former president, meanwhile, said that FBI agents took a number of personal documents such as tax records, his medical file, old passports, and his will.

‘They Were Declassified’

Since the raid, Trump has often said that he declassified the materials, pointing to a memorandum that he issued on his final day in office. That memo called for the declassification of documents pertaining to the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation, while a former aide, Kash Patel, said in an interview last month that the FBI likely seized Trump-Russia materials.

Documents seized during the Aug. 8 raid by the FBI of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla, in a photo released on Aug. 30, 2022. (FBI via The Epoch Times)

“In other words, when I left the White House, they were declassified,” Trump told Fox News on Wednesday, adding that he did not pack any of the boxes

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