Former President Donald Trump’s lame-duck excuse that he had a “standing order” to declassify any documents, however sensitive, that he shifted from the Oval Office to his Mar-a-Lago estate is total “bullshit,” according to one ex-aide. That official was one of 18 former top dogs of the Trump administration who variously told CNN that the notion of any such order was “total nonsense,” “ridiculous,” or “ludicrous.” Several officials outright laughed, CNN reported. Two of Trump’s former chiefs of staff—John Kelly and his successor Mick Mulvaney—both went on the record to deny the existence of the standing order. “Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given,” said Kelly, who worked in Trump’s West Wing from 2017 to 2019. “And I can’t imagine anyone that worked at the White House after me that would have simply shrugged their shoulders and allowed that order to go forward without dying in the ditch trying to stop it.”
