DOJ: Trump required to agree to subpoena despite the fact that he'd declassified documents - Axios

Former President Trump changed into required to come back all files marked as categorized as part of a grand jury subpoena issued in may additionally, in spite of no matter if the previous president believed he'd declassified the documents, the department of Justice wrote in an Aug. 29 courtroom submitting made public Friday.

The big picture: Trump has put forth a few causes to justify why troves of files, together with some with "appropriate secret" and "confidential" markings, were at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Trump and his group have claimed he had a "standing order" dictating that files taken from the Oval workplace to his residence had been deemed declassified upon their removing, Axios' Shawna Chen writes.

Former countrywide protection adviser John Bolton and former lawyer familiar bill Barr have both thrown doubt on the claim.

Trump and his crew have made public comments alluding to the documents being declassified by Trump however had been careful to not to basically assert the declare in legal complaints, the Washington put up suggested.

What they may be asserting: As a part of the grand jury investigation into Trump's handling of records, the grand jury issued a subpoena on may eleven asking for all documents "bearing classification markings," the court docket filing brought up.

As part of an "trade of correspondence" during which Trump's crew sought a closing date extension to reply to the subpoena, they requested the Justice department to "trust a number of 'principles,' together with the declare that a President has absolute authority to declassify files (despite the fact guidance did not really assert that FPOTUS had performed so)," the filing introduced.

"The govt notes that the subpoena sought documents 'bearing classification markings,' and therefore a complete response would now not switch on even if or not responsive files had been purportedly declassified," the Justice department claimed in the court submitting.

value noting: besides the fact that Trump had declassified the documents, they nonetheless would have needed to go to the countrywide Archives, per Bloomberg.

Go deeper: Presidential statistics Act and Trump search defined