Trump keeps citing the Presidential Records Act in his Mar-a-Lago defence: What does it say?

Donald Trump keeps pointing to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) to argue that he has done nothing wrong in the classified documents case, but what does the legislation say?

Last week, Judge Cannon on the US District Court heard arguments regarding the notion that the PRA protects Mr Trump from prosecution and that the case should be dismissed.

While Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that the law is too vague on national defence information, experts say that Mr Trump has misinterpreted the law.

Barack Obama-era US attorney Joyce Alene White Vance wrote on X on 14 March that the motions from the Trump team were “barely better than frivolous”.

“Trump insists he designated the documents as personal records under the PRA so his possession of them was authorised and he can’t be prosecuted for it. But he’s never been able to explain how the PRA trumps laws about handling classified and national defence [information]. It doesn’t,” she argued. “Even if, by some stretch of the imagination, a president can hang onto classified information by claiming its personal records, Trump’s still obstructed justice according to multiple first-hand witnesses.”

Late on 18 March, Judge Cannon issued an unusual order about jury instructions at the end of a trial despite not having yet set a date for the proceedings. She issued an order telling attorneys to file their suggested jury instructions by 2 April on two issues connected to motions by the defence to have the case dismissed.

In last week’s hearing, she appeared sceptical of Mr Trump’s assault on the Espionage Act as well as his attempt to use the PRA as a shield. But she also suggested that part of Mr Trump’s arguments could be noteworthy when the time comes for jury instructions.

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