Mar-a-Lago raid

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The National Archives recovered at least 15 boxes of presidential records earlier this year; federal law requires presidential administrations to turn over their records to the National Archives. A tipster reportedly told the federal government that not all important documents had been recovered. The FBI reportedly visited Mar-a-Lago in June and told Trump to better secure the remaining items; a subpoena was also issued after that visit in an attempt to recover them.

Read the warrant for the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for potential Espionage Act violations - Vox

The Espionage Act is actually a series of statutes under 18 US Code Chapter 37 related to the collection, retention, or dissemination of national defense or classified information. The Mar-a-Lago search warrant referred to Section 793 — “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information,” which doesn’t just cover “spying” in the sense that many think of when they hear the term. Section 793 specifically states that people legally granted access to national defense documents — people like the former president — are subject to punishment should they improperly retain that information.

Under the Presidential Records Act, which relates to the retention of government documents by the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, official documents and other material or information a president and vice president may have obtained while in the office must go to NARA for preservation.

The Presidential Records Act is a post-Watergate innovation which “changed the legal ownership of the official records of the President from private to public, and established a new statutory structure under which Presidents, and subsequently NARA, must manage the records of their Administrations,”  according to the NARA website. Under that statute, presidential records belong to the national archivist — and therefore the American people — when a president leaves office, unless that person has the permission of the archivist to dispose of records that are no longer useful.

The DOJ’s Espionage Act investigation into Trump, explained - Vox

• Specifying in detail what laws Trump likely violated, the documents don't belong to him