Trumps lawyers to invoke PRA
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Presidential Records Act. Apparently there is precedent that might protect him.
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Jackson dismissed the case, noting the agency didn't have the ability to designate materials as "presidential records," didn't have the tapes in question and lacked any mechanism to obtain them.
She also wrote that the tapes were personal records created by Clinton under the Presidential Records Act and that the act did not assign the archivist any role with personal records once a presidency concluded. The act distinguishes between personal records, which don’t have an effect on the “constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the president," and presidential records, which do relate to the duties of a president and other government business, according to NARA, the national archives agency.
David Super, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown University, said there are stark differences between the Clinton case and Trump's situation.
“The documents there − tapes of a conversation Mr. Clinton had with a historian − did not arise from Clinton's performing any constitutional, statutory or other responsibilities as president and were not created by any other federal officials, even in part," Super said. "This is a sharp contrast to the documents Mr. Trump is accused of withholding."
The Clinton case also had nothing to do with information that could be potentially harmful to national security, which meant the Espionage Act wasn't invoked. It also did not involve lying to federal agencies, disobeying subpoenas or asking other people to lie to or mislead law enforcement, Super said.
Trump is accused of all those things.
