Trump Even 'More Dangerous' Than We Thought, Warns Rep. Adam Schiff

Former President Donald Trump was more of a menace than anyone may have realized because he was clueless enough to believe he could declassify sensitive top secret documents with his mind and put the safety of the nation at risk, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday.

CNN s Jake Tapper played a clip on State of The Union of Trump insisting earlier this week to Sean Hannity that he could declassify anything just by saying so even simply by merely thinking about it .

Is that how it works? Tapper asked Schiff.

Thats not how it works, Schiff responded. Those comments dont demonstrate much intelligence of any kind. If you could simply declassify by thinking about it, then, frankly, if thats his view, hes even more dangerous than we may have thought, he told Tapper.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Donald Trump saying he could declassify anything just by thinking about it:

\"No, that's not how it works. Those comments don't demonstrate much intelligence of any kind ... If that's his view, he's even more dangerous than we thought.\" pic.twitter.com/iUHTlIweXT

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Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Donald Trump saying he could declassify anything just by thinking about it:

"No, that's not how it works. Those comments don't demonstrate much intelligence of any kind ... If that's his view, he's even more dangerous than we thought." pic.twitter.com/iUHTlIweXT
The Recount (@therecount) September 25, 2022

Distributing or blurting out information about the identities of spies or the location and details of weapons systems could cost countless lives, experts have warned. Yet Trumps former White House chief of staff, John Kelly , told The Washington Post that the former president was disdainful of the secrets shield and had no comprehension of its importance.

His sense was that the people who are in the intel business are incompetent, and he knew better , Kelly told the Post . He didnt believe in the classification system.

People work hard to obtain important intelligence, said Schiff, who is serving on the House panel investigating last years Jan. 6 insurrection.

People put their lives at risk to get that information. That information protects American lives. And for him to treat it so cavalierly shows both what a continuing danger the man is, but also how very little regard he has for anything but himself, the lawmaker added.

In Trumps view, he could simply spout off on anything he read in a presidential daily brief or anything that he was briefed on by the CIA director to a visiting Russian delegation ... and simply say, Well, I thought about it and therefore, when the words came out of my mouth, they were declassified, Schiff scoffed.

A process is required for declassifying documents . It cannot be done in secret because several federal departments and officials would need to be informed to handle the material differently. For one thing, the records would be then accessible to the Freedom of Information Act and other records requests by the press and public, former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has pointed out.

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So far, only QAnon disciple and former Trump administration Defense Department aide Kash Patel has backed up Trumps claim that he had a standing order to declassify everything that was taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.

Court-appointed Special Master Raymond Dearie, who is reviewing records seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago, has challenged Trumps attorneys to prove that any of the documents marked classified had actually somehow been declassified by Trump .

Schiff on Sunday also complained to Tapper that the Department of Justice was too slow to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection.