Trump’s Dubious ‘Standing Order’ to Declassify Documents

After the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home and retrieved boxes of documents — some of them labeled “top secret” — former President Donald Trump released a statement claiming that as president, he had a “standing order … that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.”

Numerous experts on national security and the law surrounding classified documents say that isn’t plausible. And in any case, whether some of the documents are classified — as many of them...