Plaintiff has not even attempted to show that he has a need to know the information contained in the classified documents. Nor has he established that the current administration has waived that requirement for these documents. And even if he had, that, in and of itself, would not explain why Plaintiff has an individual interest in the classified documents.
Plaintiff suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was President. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified. And before the special master, Plaintiff resisted providing any evidence that he had declassified any of these documents. See Doc. No. 97 at 2–3., Sept. 19, 2022, letter from James M. Trusty, et al., to Special Master Raymond J. Dearie, at 2–3.
In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal. So even if we assumed that Plaintiff did declassify some or all of the documents, that would not explain why he has a personal interest in them.
We cannot conclude that Plaintiff would be irreparably injured by a stay regarding the documents marked classified. Plaintiff suggests that he could be harmed by the disclosure of sensitive information. Doc. No. 84 at 8. But permitting the United States to retain the documents does not suggest that they will be released; indeed, a purpose of the United States’s efforts in investigating the recovered classified documents is to limit unauthorized disclosure of the information they contain. Not only that, but any authorized official who makes an improper disclosure risks her own criminal liability. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 798. We also doubt that Plaintiff risks irreparable injury in the form of disclosure of privileged information; he has not, for example, asserted attorney-client privilege over any of the classified documents.