Clearance is for everyone else. It is a bureaucratic way of saying "The President (or his designated subordinates) have allowed you to see this." When you say "it is illegal to declassify this", in reality is is illegal for anyone that is not the President to declassify it.
This just isn't correct though. The president can not declassify nuclear secrets and take them home when he is voted out. He could do that with a number of other things, but the documents he allegedly took do not fall into that category.
I don't agree, but regardless that presumes the nuclear secrets meme is more than just a spurious rumor started by the bitter.
On the other side of the fence we think it was materials from the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, detailing how the Trump-Russia story was fabricated in the Clinton campaign and laundered to the media (in much the same fashion as the aforementioned nuclear secrets rumor).
Classification is mostly a matter internal to the Executive Branch. The Legislature can make laws about classification, but they are co-equal with the President and not his superior. As the head of state, the President doesn't doesn't have a clearance rating. Clearance is for everyone else. It is a bureaucratic way of saying "The President (or his designated subordinates) have allowed you to see this." When you say "it is illegal to declassify this", in reality is is illegal for anyone that is not the President to declassify it.
True enough.