Mike Pence's former chief of staff said it's 'absurd' that Donald Trump thinks he can declassify documents by 'thinking about it'

Donald Trump's claim that he declassified White House records using his mind was thrown cold water by an ex-top aide to Mike Pence.

In an interview with CBS News, Short said his claim was absurd.

It would be hard for the intelligence community to have a classification system if that was the case.

Initially, Trump said that he had declassified the documents. Everyone ends up having to bring home their work at times.

Trump said in a Fox News interview that presidents can declassify materials by thinking about doing so.

Trump understands that there doesn't have to be a process. You can declassify if you're the president of the US. Pondering about it.

According to the court records made public, the FBI executed a search warrant at the former president's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and recovered several boxes of classified records that Trump took with him from the White House.

There were more than two dozen boxes of documents and other items that were found during the search. Sonam Sheth reported that some of the boxes were marked as top secret.

The court said that some of the materials include private and potentially sensitive documents.

There is no evidence that any of the records were declassified according to the court.

The National Archives and Records Administration must receive presidential records after they leave office.