The Insider reports:
Former President Donald Trump said that everyone takes work home sometimes, as he sought to develop a new line to explain why top secret government documents were stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. “As we can all relate to, everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time. American presidents are no different,” said the statement from Trump’s office on Friday night read out on Fox News.
Trump further claimed that he had a “standing order” to declassify documents “the moment” they left the Oval Office. “President Trump, in order to prepare for work the next day, often took documents, including classified documents, from the Oval Office to the residence. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them,” the statement said.
Read the full article.
Trump’s latest defense for Mar-a-Lago documents is everyone ‘brings home their work from time to time’ and the files were automatically declassified https://t.co/GZTBKHQTrE
— Politics Insider (@PoliticsInsider) August 13, 2022
I think this is the 6th or 7th different spin they’ve tried to give. https://t.co/u5jyPL2UAi
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 13, 2022
What’s so great is that Fox News trots out John Solomon, who conspired with Russian intelligence in the 2020 election, to comment on an espionage case. ? https://t.co/aPPWgAEo7X
— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) August 13, 2022
Wait — didn’t @JesseBWatters tell us a few hours ago the FBI planted the documents? Now we’re told by MAGA-FOX that yes –Trump stole the documents, but he waved his hand over them and declared “YOU ARE NOW DECLASSIFIED” (even though that’s not how documents are declassified)? https://t.co/RF06CJEcN0
— Cheri Jacobus (@CheriJacobus) August 13, 2022
I’m confused. There was a standing order to declassify planted documents as soon as Trump took them to the residence? https://t.co/41zH2UmsPC
— Jonathan Reiner (@JReinerMD) August 13, 2022
Just asked a former senior administration official who would be in a position to know about such a thing and they had absolutely no idea what this report is talking about https://t.co/ucEXaHdblg
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 13, 2022
Took a lot of advanced planning for Trump to declassify the documents that FBI agents would later plant at his home
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) August 13, 2022