They had them.. Trump didn't take anything he wasn't supposed to that the National Archives didn't have a copy of. Lookup the portion of the PRA that says "otherwise has access".
That phrase appears nowhere in the PRA or its implementing regulations. What the PRA does say is "The United States shall reserve and retain complete ownership,
possession, and control of Presidential records" and "Upon the conclusion of a President's term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the
custody, control, and preservation of, and
access to, the Presidential records of that President."
The Trump Warrant Had No Legal Basis
A former president’s rights under the Presidential Records Act trump the statutes the FBI cited to justify the Mar-a-Lago raid.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tr...st-custody-classified-fbi-garland-11661170684
Rivkin and Casey are good writers and Trump apologists. But they are wrong regarding the PRA. They claim that the Act "doesn’t address the process by which a former president’s records are physically to be turned over to the archivist, or set any deadline, leaving this matter to be negotiated between the archivist and the former president. But what is there to negotiate? That Act directs the Archivist to assume control of the possession and access to the records. Moreover, the authors conveniently fail to mention that the warrant was issued only after Trump dragged his heels for almost a year after the Archives asked him to return all of the documents that he retained after returning some. Allowing a former President to retain records indefinitely is inconsistent with the PRA.
And who cares if they "claim" they did an audit? We know they weren't fully audited, we know they didn't do signature matching.. they just "re-counted" a bunch of fraudulent ballots and claimed they were "audited". That's more like a recount, not a full audit..
And who cares if you think you "know" there were a bunch of fraudulent ballots? Where's your proof? Good grief, you have Republican Governor and a Republican Secretary of State (who said he voted for Trump) who certified the results and say that the election in Georgia wasn't stolen and that Trump's claims of fraud are bogus. What kind of conspiracy theorist are you? Are these guys Deep State moles?
His attorney argued they were defamatory per se (meaning the statements were damaging), not "with actual malice" (meaning Guiliani knew the claims were false at the time). That was an argument made to save him time and money in the lawsuit - basically "even if my client's statements were false and damaged the defendants, let's assume they did so we don't have to waste court time... he did so unknowingly and therefore this is Constitutionally protected free speech."
First of all, actual malice includes knowingly making a defamatory statement or making it with a reckless disregard for whether the statement is true. Second, I'd like to know the source for your claim that Giuliani is not admitting "actual malice". His initial filing admitted his statements were actionable and false and that he no longer disputed the “factual elements of liability” raised in the suit, although he did not admit to any damages. But the filing said nothing about the actual malice standard. See
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.238720/gov.uscourts.dcd.238720.84.2.pdf
*
The judge perceived the initial filing to contain "seemingly incongruous and certainly puzzling caveats" and ordered him to clarify. He then submitted a filing in which he admits to having "default liability" (in a default judgment situation the plaintiff's allegations of liability are taken as true but the defendant can still contest unliquidated damages) but wants to contest some issues on appeal, including damages. But if he admits to liability I can't see how he can ever raise a constitutional issue.
I can't find a copy of the second filing, but here's the article describing it:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/08/08/giuliani-appears-to-walk-back-georgia-defamation-admission/
*Edit: Third, the actual malice rule may not apply in the defamation case. That rule applies to statements made about public officials and public figures and so-called "involuntary public figures" (i.e., people who are involuntarily thrust into the limelight before the defamatory statement is made because the facts surrounding them are newsworthy. See Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374 (1967), a case Richard Nixon argued before the Supreme Court (he lost). It's debatable whether the two election workers were either public officials or public figures. They certainly weren't involuntary public figures at the time of Giuliani's false claims about them.
