"The minute the president speaks about it to someone, he has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process."
Experts agreed that the president, as commander-in-chief, is ultimately responsible for classification and declassification. When someone lower in the chain of command handles classification and declassification duties – which is usually how it’s done – it’s because they have been delegated to do so by the president directly, or by an appointee chosen by the president.
Risch
"The minute the president speaks about it to someone, he has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process."
— James Risch on Monday, May 15th, 2017 in remarks to reporters
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Does the president have 'the ability to declassify anything at any time'?
By Louis Jacobson on Tuesday, May 16th, 2017 at 4:09 p.m.
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Donald Trump denied that he did anything improper with intelligence during a meeting with top Russian officials in the Oval Office.
President Donald Trump meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office on May 10, 2017.. (Russian Foreign Ministry handout via AP)
The blockbuster article in the Washington Post saying President Donald Trump had "revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting" didn’t just put the White House on the defensive. It also put Republican lawmakers in a tight spot.
One of the members of Congress who commented after the newspaper’s revelations was Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho. According to CNN, he told reporters, "The minute the president speaks about it to someone, he has the ability to declassify anything at any time without any process."
Is that accurate? Independent experts said Risch is on target concerning the legal powers of the president. Some experts added, however, that the senator’s formulation left out some context that is relevant for assessing Trump’s alleged actions.
The president’s classification and declassification powers are broad
Experts agreed that the president, as commander-in-chief, is ultimately responsible for classification and declassification. When someone lower in the chain of command handles classification and declassification duties – which is usually how it’s done – it’s because they have been delegated to do so by the president directly, or by an appointee chosen by the president.
The majority ruling in the 1988 Supreme Court case Department of Navy vs. Egan – which addressed the legal recourse of a Navy employee who had been denied a security clearance – addresses this line of authority.
"The President, after all, is the ‘Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States’" according to Article II of the Constitution, the court’s majority wrote. "His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security … flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant."