{UAH} Will John Bolton's book make President Trump look like a fool?

John Doe

I've held an active security clearance for just short of four decades, and I go through all of the required training courses every single year. Here are some of the things I know that President Trump evidently does not know.

First, all levels of classification are related directly to the estimated level of damage to national security that will occur if classified material is compromised or disclosed. (Top Secret is exceptionally grave damage. Secret is serious damage. Confidential is damage.) No one, including the president can wave a hand and declare something classified on a whim. He has to demonstrate a direct threat to national security if the information is disclosed.

Second, there's a formal process for classifying information, with clear cut guidelines on what cannot legally be classified.

Third, to deliberately over-classify information is a crime.

The following is a direct copy and paste from DoDM 5200.01-V1, the official legal guidance for classifying information:

2. CLASSIFICATION PROHIBITIONS

a. Information may not be classified, continued to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to:

(1) Conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error.

(2) Prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency.

(3) Restrain competition.

(4) Prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interests of the national security.

This isn't my opinion. It's the law.

It is literally illegal for President Trump to declare all presidential meetings and correspondence classified, and the law specifically prevents him from using classification to prevent embarrassment to himself, the White House, or the federal government.

It is also illegal for President Trump to deliberately delay the release of information that doesn't require protection in the interests of national security. (Not protection in the interests of the president, but of national security.)

Bottom line... If this comes down to a court battle, President Trump is going to have to demonstrate — for each and every meeting, memo, and conversation covered in Bolton's book — that the entire content of the exchange was directly relevant to national security. And, even then, the most he can do is arrange for redaction of the portions that are specifically classified.

This doesn't work the way most of you seem to think it does. And, from his statements so far, President Trump doesn't have a clue how the governing laws and directives for classified material work.

Edit: Here's the part of this situation that I find amusing. The Trump administration is simultaneously claiming that the information in Bolton's book is classified, and that the book contains nothing but lies. How can you possibly classify stuff that Bolton just made up?

If the book is a collection of falsehoods, it might be libel, but it definitely can't be classified. The only way the book could possibly be classified is if it contains accurate information.

So… DJT's best defense is that this book of fake stories is actually true?

Once again, his damage control team isn't thinking things through.

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