US Politics
Trump has legal authority to declassify intelligence Executive Order 13526 As president, Trump has the legal power to declassify information. He also has the authority to share information with whomever he wants, including foreign adversaries. Trump is protected under an executive order that was signed by Barack Obama in 2009 establishing a uniform system for “classifying, safeguarding and declassifying national security information.” The order allows the president to determine the system of designating classified information, and he is the ultimate authority over U.S. intelligence agencies, which gather and classify the information. “[The president’s] authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security … flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the president and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant,” the court said.
Credit H.A.Goodman