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?

The former president attended a court hearing in Fort Pierce, Florida on Thursday. His legal team argued that the judge, Trump-appointed Aileen Cannon, should throw out the charges against Mr Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents.

Judge Cannon on the US District Court heard arguments regarding the notion that the Presidential Records Act protects Mr Trump from prosecution.

While Mr Trump’s attorneys argue that the law is too vague on national defence information, experts say that Mr Trump has misinterpreted the law, which he has made to argument against his prosecution.

Barack Obama-era US attorney Joyce Alene White Vance wrote on X on Thursday that the motions from the Trump team are “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.”

In 2022, the FBI conducted a raid on Mar-a-Lago, finding more than 100 classified documents that had not been handed back to the government despite several requests and subpoenas being issued.

The Presidential Records Act was put in place in 1978, four years after the resignation of Richard Nixon following the Watergate