Much has been made in recent weeks concerning former President Donald Trump’s retention of federally classified documents. While I intensely disapprove of Trump’s actions, if he’s looking for a good defense on this issue, he can do no better than refer to these words from one of his former adversaries:
“The Department of Justice’s investigation [of Hillary Clinton’s emails] turned on questions of classification. The question now was what should be classified and did I or anyone else intend to mishandle it? Despite its science-y name, classification isn’t a science. Five people asked to look at the same set of documents could easily come to five different decisions. We see this every day across the government as different agencies disagree about what information should be considered classified. When I was Secretary [of State], it was not uncommon for one of our Foreign Service Officers talking to foreign diplomats and journalists to report back on political or military developments in a country and file this information in unclassified form. But a CIA agent in the same country, using covert information and techniques, might gather the very same facts yet classify the report as secret. The very same information: Is it classified or not? Experts and agencies frequently disagree.” — Hillary Rodham Clinton, in What Happened, pp. 305-306 (Simon & Schuster 2016).
It’s rather interesting that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would find themselves in agreement on anything at all, let alone such a vital issue as this one.
Thomas N. Thompson, Salt Lake City
Donate to the newsroom now. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax deductible