A group of national security experts assert Donald Trump did not have the legal authority to declassify a document related to a nuclear weapons program found at Mar-a-Lago, a potential twist to the 37-count indictment Trump faces in Florida, Reuters reports.
Trump is accused of holding 31 classified documents illegally and blocking efforts by the federal government to retrieve the documents. In the listing of classified material connected to these charges and listed as Document 19 on the inventory is a document described as “Undated document concerning nuclear weaponry of the United States.” However, under the Atomic Energy Act, information about the US nuclear weapons force can only be declassified through an approval process involving the Departments of Energy and Defense; the President’s power to declassify is not universal relating to nuclear weapons.