Today in a court filing, surrounding a FOIA case seeking access to the fully unredacted Carter Page FISA application, the DOJ clarified the position of the DOJ as it pertains to President Trump’s May 2019 declassification authority. (pdf available here)
The DOJ highlights that President Trump did not order AG William Barr to declassify anything. Instead, according to the official position of the DOJ, President Trump “delegated authority” to the Attorney General to determine *if* anything should be declassified:
Whether AG Bill Barr does actually declassify anything is open to debate. The current odds remain slightly less than 50/50; however, those odds could diminish significantly if the impeachment effort is successful.
The current priority for the Dept. of Justice does not appear to be highlighting internal corruption that targeted President Trump. The current institutional priority appears to be protecting Rod Rosenstein. However, we should have a better idea exactly where this will all end when we see the IG Report on potential FISA abuses against Carter Page.
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