Donald Trump has an indisputably delusional view of what it takes to declassify national security secrets, recently claiming that he, as president, could have declassified documents just "by thinking about it." As much as Trump's latest self-serving crazy makes for good late-night comedy fodder, it also reminds us how much absurdity the U.S. government has created in national security litigation. As attorneys for whistleblowers and media sources, our cases have been the breeding ground for abuse of the broken classification system.
Beneath the public laugh-fest over Trump's outlandish claims of telepathic declassification powers lies the implication that somewhere, somehow, there is a clear, fair process for doing so. But in reality, the classification system is plagued by over-classification and is routinely misused and abused to control the free flow of information to the public, rather than to protect national security. For example, when the Biden administration recently wanted to promote its move to require more systemic oversight for drone strikes, a senior administration official anonymously discussed the classified policy with the New York Times.
