There is no way for the President to mishandle documents. He has the explicit power to declassify at will. The Archives can’t change the Presidential powers act. Its pretty specifically worded and wide ranging.
Let’s turn this around to Biden- even though he was Vice President at the time, he ended up with classified documents in his garage.
Were they declassified, and if so, who declassified them?
If they weren’t declassified, why were they even there in the first place?
What is the specific wording in the PRA that refers to the President’s power to classify/declassify?
All the stuff about declassification comes from Executive Orders, not the PRA. And Trump did not issue an Executive Order about declassification by mental telepathy. In short, the President CAN decide something is declassified, but he MUST communicate that to all other necessary powers.
The exception to him being able to declassify at will are nuclear secrets, and Dept. of Energy and DOD have to sign off.
Classification is a red herring.
the issue under the Presidential Records Act is that these documents belong to the American people, not to the President. Unless they are private papers and the Archivist has agreed that they are, Trump should not have had them.
. Under the PRA, the official records of the President and his staff are owned by the United States, not by the President.
The Archivist is required to take custody of these records when the President leaves office, and to maintain them in a Federal depository.