"Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given," Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly tells CNN, which interviewed more than a dozen other former White House officials

More than a dozen former Trump administration officials are disputing claims that the former president had a "standing order" to declassify documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence.

Since the FBI searched Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property and seized 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked "top secret," the former president and his supporters have said that because of the order any classified materials Trump removed would be instantly declassified.

A statement from Trump's office read on Fox News four days after the search of Trump's Palm Beach, Fla., resort, outlined his defense and suggested the declassification order was in place so the president could work from home as needed.

"Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given," John Kelly, who served as Trump's chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, told CNN in a report that cites 17 other officials who called the claim of a standing order to declassify White House documents false.

"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," Kelly added.

Mick Mulvaney, who became the acting White House chief of staff after Kelly, also told CNN he was "not...

Read Full Story: https://people.com/politics/18-former-trump-officials-say-claim-standing-orde...