Anonymous ID: f7c3fe June 15, 2023, 5:40 p.m. No.19013951   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3962 >>3987

>>19013752

Not constitutional nor applicable.

Congress has not, nor does it have the authority to, established classified information in the first place. To even attempt it quickly runs into issues with the 1st amendment and separation of powers. You would need a constitutional amendment to grant congress the power to create classified information.

Second - classified information exista because of executive privilege. The President can choose how documents are handled within the executive branch (regardless of what he wants to call them) and can control who has access to those documents. For Congress to try to intervene in this process would be a violation of the constitution. At best, Congress can require reports from the executive branch limiting what information can be concealed, but not limiting what information can be revealed by the President or his agents.

Even creating a criminal statute that points to the executive process would be dubious as Congress can't delegate its legislative authority. Making it a crime to violate the standards of an executive order would be allowing the President to author law by changing the EO without a vote of congress. All laws must pass through congress and be voted on or they are fair game to be violated and have overturned by the courts.

 

This means that there is no crime in exposing classified information, Constitutionally. The only area where you may get into trouble is the espionage act. That is why they charged Trump under that and did not go for these more dubious statutes - as the case would end up ripping all the teeth out of the intelligence agency insurrection that relies on the belief the 80 year NDA we sign is even remotely legal.

 

Don't get me wrong… there are armed people with prisons and equipment who are very convinced they have the authority to behave as though those laws are legitimate and you would need a fortune to fight those laws in court from behind bars and with your contacts being threatened by people who think they are agent smith.

 

But the entire premise of there being classified information beyond how the president chooses to allow access to executive branch documents is unconstitutional nonsense.