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Cillizza: Let's start with basic. The president has the unilateral power to declassify any information he likes? How and why?
CorderoAt the most basic level, the president has powers granted by the US Constitution, including general powers related to national security. He is the commander-in-chief. He is also the head of the executive branch of the US government. As a result, he leads the military and intelligence communities, which means that he is the decision maker of how agencies handle information, including classified information.
In practice, however, a chair is usually not personally involved in classification decisions except in the most extraordinary circumstances. Since 2004, with the creation of the National Intelligence Director's office by law, the highest ranking officer in the ranking or declassification is the National Intelligence Director (DNI). Below the DNI, senior intelligence community officials have the power to classify or downgrade. And then, at lower levels, there are government officials known as "official classification authorities". These officials have been authorized to make classification decisions that have been delegated to them.
Cillizza: What will be declassified exactly? Are we talking about the potential of disseminating sensitive information?
Cordero: The most recent batch of information has not been released yet. It is therefore difficult to exactly determine its content. But based on information provided by the White House press officer, a category of information will include requests from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). FISA is the legal framework under which the executive carries out surveillance and research for foreign intelligence purposes – in other words, investigative activities to catch terrorists and spies.
At a high level of generality, FISA applications could contain, as examples, survey information obtained through a variety of sources, including sensitive technical sources (such as telephone tapping) and human sources. Sensitive information could be disseminated, but it is also possible that information is written. We must see what is published. Other information, such as text messages between FBI employees, is probably not filed, although there are other good reasons not to publish these messages publicly.
There are also reports that FBI notes or interview documents – sometimes called 302s – could be released. These types of investigative documents may be provided to the opposing counsel in the context of a criminal prosecution, for example during a prior investigation. But to release them publicly, especially when the Special Council and the FBI are investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, seems to me to be very inappropriate. Investigative files concerning ongoing investigations are not even usually presented to Congress as part of a closed surveillance procedure, let alone when an investigation is underway.
Cillizza: Is there a process for reviewing documents before they are published? If so, who leads and how are decisions made if something is hidden?
Cordero: Yes, there would normally be a process for reviewing classified information before it is declassified and published. In the case of information on FISA or FBI investigations, this study would be conducted by the Department of Justice and the FBI, in consultation with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. If the documents contain information collected or analyzed by other agencies of the intelligence community, these agencies would also be consulted. Decommissioning reviews are often time consuming and involve strong inter-agency coordination. The agency staff involved in declassification reviews is usually very attentive as the consequences of inadvertently disclosing classified information may lead to revealing abilities to foreign opponents and / or reducing effectiveness of investigation techniques.
Cillizza: Put this shot by Trump in a certain context. Have past presidents done something like this or is it unprecedented?
Cordero: As stated above, in the modern history of the intelligence community, it is extraordinary that a president participates in daily declassification decisions. An example where a president could be personally engaged in a decommissioning decision would be if it was in the public interest to disclose information about an outstanding terrorist threat in the country of origin. Or, if a president authorized the dissemination of information in a public setting to explain the intelligence information supporting the decision to engage in military activities. It would be a legitimate reason for a president to order the declassification of information of public interest. Moreover, in recent years, we have seen the DNI make the decision to declassify information in the public interest to facilitate debate between the Congress and the public on supervisory authorities and to improve the transparency of the authorities and activities of the public. collection of information.
My assessment is that what we see this week and this year is different for at least two reasons. First, information being declassified involves FISA information. Until the existence of the Carter page, FISA's claims were publicly disclosed, and then the documents themselves were published in redacted form, as FISA's claims never previously published. This goes back to the initial promulgation of FISA in 1978.
In fact, in the many criminal prosecutions of terrorism and espionage cases over the last four decades, the government has been able to convince the federal courts that the claims were too important for national security. Similarly, the Government had not published the application of FISA following requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Thus, a significant threshold has been crossed during the past year.
Second, I question the justification of recent versions. The standard, according to the policy and precedents, is that the publication should be in the public interest. In the current situation, it is difficult for a neutral observer to identify a legitimate public interest at this stage in further declassifications of the FISA documents, if it is to support a political discourse according to which the FBI or DOJ conducted inappropriate investigations. This political account of alleged abuse has, however, not been confirmed by previous releases.
Cillizza: Finish this sentence: "What we will learn from this declassification is ________." Now, explain.
Cordero"What we learn from this declassification is not much related to national security."
There may be other things that are slightly embarrassing for the people or agencies involved, but this will add little to the understanding of the institutions' work. Assuming that the President authorizes the agencies to draft the documents before publishing them, there may not be much revealed information that is really illuminating from a security point of view national.
On the other hand, a greater number of text messages between two FBI employees that do not contain classified information but are similar to the previous messages that have been broadcast may very well fulfill the political purpose to throw a shadow over the bureaucracy.
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