BLUF:
[American Thinker] Every single one of those highlighted words is completely wrong. Those classifications (which should not have been leaked, of course) come from pencil pushers; that is, hired bureaucrats assigned those classifications to the documents. There is only one person in the land who can officially classify and declassify documents, and that is the President of the United States. He gets that plenary power through the Constitution and the will of We the People, who elected him.
To the extent bureaucrats assign classifications to documents, they do so only through delegated power. No matter how many little red rubber stamps they use to mark up documents, it is the president who has the final say. Not the Department of Justice, not the FBI, and certainly not some soggy little bureaucrats in the National Archives. |