White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on Tuesday that President Trump’s tweets about the declassification of documents related to the Russia investigation were not an order to declassify or release more documents.
Meadows said in an affidavit before a federal court that Trump’s tweets earlier this month instead referred only to the authority given to Attorney General William Barr by the President last year to release material related to the Russia investigation.
“The President pointed out to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and did not require declassification or release of certain documents,” Meadows wrote in the statement filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
“The President’s statements do not require amendment of any reductions in any record that is under consideration in these or other cases, including but not limited to reductions made under discretionary exceptions by the FOIA,” he added.
A federal judge had asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to file a statement from Trump or one of his aides explaining whether the President intended to declassify the report of former special adviser Robert Mueller without blackening it, which would be in direct contradiction to the DOJ’s position.
Trump issued a flood of tweets in early October, declaring that he had released all documents related to the “Russia hoax,” a phrase he often uses to refer to Mueller’s investigation of the Russian election intervention and Trump’s contacts with Moscow in the 2016 election campaign.
“I have fully approved the complete declassification of all documents relating to the greatest political crime in American history, the Russia Hoax,” Trump tweeted on October 6. “So did the e-mail scandal involving Hillary Clinton. No blackening!”
DOJ lawyers previously argued that the tweets should not be considered actual declassification orders.
Meadows’ statement came in response to orders in two federal cases requesting documents from Mueller’s investigation.
Both the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Buzzfeed and CNN have filed lawsuits to gain access to additional documents from the investigation.
