Former Pence aide: Trump's declassification claim "absurd"

What he’s saying: "That's absurd, obviously," Short said in response to a question about Trump’s remarks. "And I think it would make it very difficult for the intelligence community to have a classification system if that was the case."

• Short said neither he nor the former vice president shared that view or approach to handling classified materials.

Catch up quick: Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that there “doesn’t have to be a process” for a president to deem a document declassified.

• "If you're the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, 'It's declassified,'" Trump said.
• "Even by thinking about it, because you're sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you're sending it. ... There can be a process, but there doesn't have to be."

The big picture: Classified documents are at the center of the Department of Justice's investigation into Trump and the former president's ongoing legal battle with the DOJ.

• Since the FBI seized a trove of government papers from Mar-a-Lago, some of which were labeled "top secret,” Trump has repeatedly claimed he declassified them while he was still in office.

• The Justice Department contends that the records belong to the government, not Trump.
• After a Trump-appointed lower court judge ordered federal officials to halt their review of the materials, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the DOJ could resume reviewing the recovered documents.
• Since the court ruling, intelligence officials have begun poring over the files as a part of a national security risk assessment.