Originally Posted by
jp1
Sure, I'll give a three line summary. It's not the documents themselves that are classified, it's the specific individual facts in them. When something gets declassified the paragraph of the document that states that fact gets stamped "declassified, MM/DD/YY". All other documents that contain that specific fact get similarly stamped. A document that contains multiple classified facts that have been pulled together may well have multiple stamps on some of the facts declassifying those facts at different times. The president can't just claim randomly to have declassified something at some point in the past. There's a process and documentation required. Also, defense related secrets, most especially those related to nuclear weapons, cannot be declassified by the president alone.