An important exclusive.
CNN is told the national archives now set to happened over to the special counsel 16
records showing the former president and top advisers knew the correct declassification
process, despite what trump says, that he cannot declassify by wishing it so or taking
it with him to mar-a-lago.
A top archives official informed trump and his legal team that the the special counsel
will have those documents by next week.
Our legal analysts join us now.
The notification was in case you want to run to court and try to file an appeal to block
us from doing this.
What's the significance if the special counsel gets these documents, communications throughout
the process trying to get them back explaining these are the rules, please follow them.
>> It's communications between members of the president's own
[12:17:12 PM]
members of the president's own white house team, essentially people close to him, we
don't know exactly what the letters say, but according to this letter from the archives,
what it tribes is a process that the former president knew existed for carrying out declassifications.
So what it does is it really kind of goes up against what the former president is saying,
which is that there doesn't have to be a process because as a president, I have the ultimate
declassification power.
He's right about that in the sense that this has never been tested in court.
We don't know whether courts will land on whether a president can say it's declassified
and does he have to wait for the bureaucracy to carry out his wishes or declassified what
he said.
It's quite possible he may win on some of this.
We don't know.
>> So pause there.
We'll bring the lawyer into the
[12:18:13 PM]
We'll bring the lawyer into the conversation.
This is at our CNN town hall with trump saying I was president.
I can do it.
>> I have every right to.
I was there.
I took what I took and it gets declassified.
>> If you read the act, the United States should reserve ownership, possession and control
of presidential records and such records shall be administered in the accordance of this
chapter.
>> He's legally and factually incorrect with the statement he's making.
Number one, 12:01 P.M.
On inauguration day, every four or eight years at that moment, all presidential records immediately
become the custody of the national art arrives.
Not the former president.
It doesn't matter if it's Donald Trump.
It happened to Barack Obama, anybody else.
Number two, declassification, yes, the president has
[12:19:15 PM]
yes, the president has authority.
He does, but there's a process for it.
Like I can't file my taxes by thinking, oh, I'm going to file them with the irs.
There's a process where you send the letter and so on.
It works the same way.
It's a process that has to play out.
The president cannot just will it into being, even if it's what he wanted to carry out.
>> Etc.s personally if what the art Kentuckys are saying is if he acknowledged and practiced
this entire process that has existed by his administration.
So what you can imagine prosecutors are trying to do here is to say, all of these other times
you were adhering to this process.
So here's all the times that you said this.
>> One of the president's lawyers are clearly awe ware of the dlts.
One of them said this.
>> If you look at the constitution, you look at the presidential records act, there's absolutely
no basis for saying that bureaucracy rules
[12:20:15 PM]
saying that bureaucracy rules and the president doesn't have the authority entrusted in him
by the voters to possess and declassify and to hold on to documents.
>> Is that because you say it's been untested in court?
What is it?
>> That's simply not accurate.
Think about every area, assigning treaties or issuing executive orders, the president
can do that, but there's a process for doing so.
Simply just can't exist in one person's head.
That's not the way it works.
>> It's simply their best argument.
He knows it.
We'll see how far that gets them It is hard when you have this many steps to
launch a presidential campaign.
Sara?
>> Now, the national archives according to sources is set to turn over critical evidence,
16 records, and some of them showing former president Donald Trump and his top advisers
did have knowledge of how to correctly declassify documents when he was president.
He has long claimed that he could declassify them by simply removing them from the white
house, and he has repeated that claim just last week.
>> Do you still have any classified documents in your possession?
>> Are you ready?
>> Do you?
>> I don't have any declassified documents.
And by the way, they become declassified when I took them.
>> Not true.
Paula, why is the special counsel interested in these
[11:08:03 AM]
counsel interested in these particular records?
>> Well, these 16 records could shed light on the extent to which the former president
was aware of the proper process for declassifying documents.
According to the letter from the archives that was exclusively obtained by our colleague
Jamie gangal says that some of the close advisers directed to you, trump, personally, concerning
whether, why you should declassify certain records.
Now, here the former president has cited a constitutional privilege to try to block the
special counsel from obtaining these records, but the archives said that the special counsel
is willing to go court to establish why these are so critical to ongoing investigation.
We know that among the crimes he is investigating is whether someone should be charged with
mishandling classified material, and to do that they have to acknowledge they had knowledge
[11:09:04 AM]
acknowledge they had knowledge that they were transferring materials without permission.
And so in termsf how this went down, just last night, one of the former lawyers said
that he didn't have to go through what he called a bureaucratic process, and he had
the constitutional right to declassify the documents, and they said that the president
had a standing order, but over a dozen officials said they were not aware of that.
So if he went declassifying them, how he went about doing that, and it is a question to
be settled by the courts, and the extent of this very broad power