Legal experts and critics lashed Donald Trump over the weekend after he fabricated a law he claimed gives presidents the “absolute and unquestioned right” to take any documents when they leave office.
The former president made the claim during a speech at the conservative Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday.
While railing against last month’s federal Espionage Act indictment over his handling of classified documents taken from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump claimed: “Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the absolute and unquestioned right to do so.”
“This was a law that was passed and signed,” he insisted. “And it couldn’t be more clear.”
Legal experts did not agree. Laurence Tribe, a legal scholar and Harvard University professor emeritus, said “no such law exists.”