Part of the Donald Trump Agenda47 campaign was to “Establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to declassify and publish all documents on Deep State spying, censorship, and abuses of power.” It’s not a bad idea, considering Americans’ trust in the US government and its institutions remains near its lowest point ever. Not to mention, as many as 50 million documents are classified annually, costing roughly $18 billion yearly to maintain. So making the government transparent seems long overdue. Is that even possible, or have Americans endured so much secrecy and deceit that declassification might feel like just a ploy to mislead them while bureaucrats continue the charade?
The Classified Mess Trump Faces
The first problem is that, when discussing classified documents, people tend to focus on what the government is hiding instead of recognizing its power in how it reveals information. With billions of documents hidden from public view, federal authorities can selectively declassify information, deliberately removing context by withholding contradictory details. “Presidents and others leverage the system by leaking or planting information with the press to bring attention to selected topics,” explained a 2021 study published in The Yale Law Journal. “Whether their goal is to garner support for a congressional vote, a war, or a political agenda, selective declassification can be a powerful tool for shaping conversations and outcomes.”
It’s not only documents but images, videos, hard drives, and maps, among other items, that can be classified at three levels: confidential (the lowest), secret, and top secret (the highest). One estimate in 2010, according to US News and World Report, “assessed that as much as 90 percent of classified information did not need to be so at that time, or ever.”
Over-classification can make it “harder for voters and journalists to hold their leaders accountable,” said German Lopez in 2023, writing for The New York Times. Unnecessarily keeping information concealed can also “make it difficult for agencies to share information with others,” Lopez continued, “whether they are other U.S. agencies or foreign partners.”
Around a million people have the proper clearance to classify materials. Many seem to believe it is wiser to button down an item than to risk potential consequences. Better safe than fired, perhaps. “There’s an old joke about how a lot of secret intelligence is not actually secret, and what is secret is not always very intelligent,” said Matthew Connelly, a history professor at Columbia University, speaking to NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe in 2023.
If Trump could get federal agencies to stop needlessly making documents classified, that would probably be a big step toward a more transparent government. However, previous presidents promised to fix the classification system but didn’t completely follow through. Why would the president-elect be any different?
Stalled Efforts
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which took effect in 1967, allows Americans to request access to the US government’s classified material. Still, officials can deny citizens if the desired items fall under one of nine exemption categories, including those related to national security, law enforcement, and “geological and geophysical information.” Yet the descriptions for each category seem open-ended, almost as if each exemption is clouded with murky words that deliberately allow selective interpretations.
Many presidential administrations have endeavored to declassify and release documents. In 1992, Congress passed the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, demanding all assassination-related records be released within 25 years. A quarter of a century passed, and then-President Donald Trump, despite previously vowing to comply with the act, released only 53,000 new files and later postponed the process, citing “identifiable national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns.” In 2023, President Joe Biden made 17,000 files available to the public and eventually gave a statement similar to Trump’s, attempting to justify continued classification. Jump back to 2009: President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13526, which required agencies to declassify standard records after ten years and more sensitive files after 25. However, the nine exemption categories remain, giving agencies license to maintain their secrets.
“It is precisely this kind of overzealous secrecy that fuels the ‘conspiracy theories’ the academic establishment tells us to avoid,” said Sean McMeekin, a professor of history at Bard College, in The Federalist.
How much security surrounds these materials anyway? Remember when classified documents were found in Trump’s Florida compound, and people were aghast until President Biden’s attorneys in 2023 discovered some in his home and former office? Then, an attorney for former Vice President Mike Pence reported finding a “small number” of classified documents in his Indiana home.
In July 2024, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced a bill “to improve the federal government’s document classification and declassification system.” He claimed the current one is outdated and inefficient, with millions of backlogged pages waiting to be declassified. It’s “a growing crisis that undermines both our national security and government transparency,” which “obscures truly sensitive information and erodes trust in government.”
Secrets seem inherent to the government’s functioning. Though the current classification system began just before World War II, examples of the government keeping materials confidential date back to 1774, when the Continental Congress passed a resolution “that the doors be kept shut during the time of business” and “to keep the proceedings secret, until the majority shall direct them to be made public.” A deviation from the norm appears far-fetched, but maybe Trump will be able to stick to his pledge and give Americans a more transparent glimpse at the workings of the federal authorities. But even if he does, what are the chances Americans will ever believe the government is not hiding anything from them?
