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![]() Nonetheless, both the Senate and the House have established procedures for unilaterally publishing classified information. The current version of this order, issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, clearly asserts exclusive executive branch power to declassify information, citing both statutory and constitutional authority. And indeed, federal standards for classification are determined solely by executive order. ![]() The executive branch has often asserted that it has the exclusive prerogative to classify-and declassify-documents pertaining to national security. The effort succeeded this time, but this episode raises an important question: Does Congress have the authority to release a classified document against the wishes of the sitting President? Ultimately, the committee's Democrats agreed to work with the executive branch to redact elements of their memo in order to secure declassification. With both memos, the HSPCI invoked a previously-unused rule that dates back to the committee's creation in 1977, which authorizes classified information to be made public even without declassification by the executive branch. That memo made inflammatory allegations of wrongful behavior by FBI officials while investigating Carter Page, a one-time Trump campaign aide. The Democratic memo in question was a response to another memorandum by Republican HSPCI staff that was declassified by the President and made public on February 2. ![]() Ultimately, these two branches cooperated, and so this fundamental question of constitutional authority remains unresolved. The effort to release the memo created the potential for a constitutional conflict between the President and Congress over who has authority to release information that the executive branch has classified. Last week, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) released a heavily redacted Democratic staff memorandum about the ongoing Russia investigation. ![]()
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