Hours after pleading not responsible in a federal court docket in Miami to costs associated to his dealing with of categorised paperwork, former President Donald J. Trump defended his conduct on Tuesday with a string of acquainted falsehoods.

Appearing at his golf membership in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Trump drew deceptive comparisons to different political figures, misconstrued the classification course of and leveled inaccurate assaults at officers.

Here’s a reality verify of claims Mr. Trump made associated to the inquiry.

What Mr. Trump Said

“Threatening me with 400 years in prison for possessing my own presidential papers, which just about every other president has done, is one of the most outrageous and vicious legal theories ever put forward in an American court of law.”

False. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 governs the preservation and retention of official data of former presidents, and provides the National Archives and Records Administration full possession and management of presidential data. The legislation makes a distinction between official data and private paperwork, and has utilized to each president since Ronald Reagan.

The company has stated that “it assumed physical and legal custody of the presidential records from the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, when those presidents left office.”

Separately, after Mr. Trump repeatedly and misleadingly in contrast his dealing with of data to that of his fast predecessor, the National Archives said in a statement that former President Barack Obama turned over his paperwork, categorised and unclassified, as required by legislation. The company has also said it’s not conscious of any lacking packing containers of presidential data from the Obama administration.

What Mr. Trump Said

“The decision to segregate personal materials from presidential records is made by the president during the president’s term and in the president’s sole discretion.”

False. The Presidential Records Act defines what constitutes private supplies — equivalent to diaries or political marketing campaign paperwork — from official data. It doesn’t give the president “sole discretion” in figuring out what’s and isn’t a private document. Under the law, a departing president is required to separate private paperwork from official data earlier than leaving workplace.

F.B.I. brokers searched Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in August, greater than a yr after the overall counsel of the National Archives requested the recovery of the materials and after months of repeated inquiries from officers on the company and on the Justice Department.

What Mr. Trump Said

“I was supposed to negotiate with NARA, which is exactly what I was doing until Mar-a-Lago was raided by gun-toting F.B.I. agents.”

False. The Presidential Records Act doesn’t set up a technique of negotiation between the president and the archives. The court-approved search of Mr. Trump’s Florida residence unfolded after he repeatedly resisted the federal government’s requests that he return the material, even after being subpoenaed.

What Mr. Trump Said

“Biden sent 1,850 boxes to the University of Delaware, making the search very, very difficult for anybody. And he refuses to give them up and he refuses to let people even look at them, and then they say how he’s behaving so nicely.”

This is deceptive. Joseph R. Biden Jr. donated 1,850 boxes of documents to the University of Delaware in 2012 from his tenure as a senator representing the state from 1973 to 2009. Unlike presidential paperwork, which should be launched to the archives as soon as a president leaves workplace, paperwork from members of Congress are usually not coated by the Presidential Records Act. It just isn’t unusual for senators and representatives to present such objects to colleges, research institutions or historical facilities.

The University of Delaware agreed to not give the general public entry to Mr. Biden’s paperwork from his time as senator till two years after he retired from public life. But the F.B.I. did search the gathering in February as a part of a separate particular counsel investigation into Mr. Biden’s dealing with of presidency paperwork and in cooperation along with his authorized group. The New York Times reported on the time that the fabric was nonetheless being analyzed however didn’t seem to comprise any categorised paperwork.

What Mr. Trump Said

“When caught, Hillary then deleted and acid-washed. Nobody does that because of the expense, but it’s pretty conclusive. Thirty-three thousand emails in defiance of a congressional subpoena already launched. The subpoena was there and she decided to delete, acid-wash and then smash and destroy her cellphones with a hammer. And then they say I participated in obstruction.”

This is deceptive. There are a number of key variations between Mr. Trump’s case and Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail server whereas she was secretary of state — which Mr. Trump additionally described inaccurately.

Crucially, several official investigations have concluded that Mrs. Clinton didn’t systematically or intentionally mishandle categorised materials, and a 2018 inspector basic report supported the F.B.I.’s decision to not cost Mrs. Clinton.

In distinction, Mr. Trump is accused of mishandling categorised paperwork and obstructing the federal government’s repeated efforts to get better them and making false statements to officers. The indictment unsealed last week featured pictures of paperwork saved in generally haphazard methods, together with packing containers stacked in a bathe and others piled on the stage of a ballroom that friends frequented.

According to the F.B.I.’s inquiry into the matter, Mrs. Clinton’s attorneys supplied about 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department in 2014 and instructed an worker to take away all private emails older than 60 days. In 2015, after The Times reported Mrs. Clinton’s use of a personal email account, a Republican-led House committee investigating the 2012 assaults on American outposts in Benghazi, Libya, sent a subpoena requesting all emails she had in that account associated to Libya.

That similar month, an worker working for the corporate that managed Mrs. Clinton’s server realized he didn’t truly delete the private emails as instructed in 2014. He then used a free software program program referred to as BleachBit — not precise acid or chemical compounds — to delete about 30,000 private emails.

About a dozen paperwork with categorised markings have been discovered at Mr. Pence’s house. The F.B.I. searched his house in February along with his settlement and located one further categorised doc. It is unclear what number of categorised paperwork have been present in Mr. Biden’s possession, however his attorneys have stated “a small number” have been found at his former workplace and a couple of half-dozen at his Delaware house.

In distinction, Mr. Trump saved “hundreds” of categorised paperwork, in accordance with the Justice Department’s indictment, which stated some data included details about the nation’s nuclear packages in addition to “potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack.” In whole, the federal government has retrieved more than 300 files with categorised markings from his Florida house and personal membership.

Representatives for Mr. Pence and Mr. Biden have stated that they inadvertently stored these paperwork and rapidly alerted the National Archives as soon as they have been found. Both males additionally cooperated with authorities officers in turning over the paperwork and appeared to have voluntarily complied with searches of their properties.

In distinction, Mr. Trump repeatedly defied requests to return supplies for months and, in accordance with the indictment, performed an lively function in concealing categorised paperwork from investigators. The archives alerted Mr. Trump in May 2021 that presidential paperwork have been lacking. Officials retrieved 15 packing containers from Mar-a-Lago in January 2022 however suspected that different data remained lacking. Seven months later, F.B.I. brokers searched the Florida property and recovered further paperwork.

What Mr. Trump Said

“Unlike me, who had absolute declassification authority as president, Joe Biden as vice president had no authority to declassify and no right to possess the documents. He had no right.”

This is deceptive. Vice presidents do have the power to declassify certain material, although the scope of their declassification powers has not been explicitly examined in courts.

Mr. Trump has beforehand insisted that he had the ability to declassify materials while not having to tell anybody. There are formal procedures for declassifying data, however whether or not presidents should abide by them is an unsettled legal issue, in accordance with the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service and the American Bar Association. A federal appeals court docket dominated in 2020 that “declassification, even by the president, must follow established procedures.” But the Supreme Court has but to weigh in on the matter.

It is price noting, although, that Mr. Trump adopted these procedures for sure paperwork, like issuing a memorandum on the day before leaving office declassifying data associated to the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 marketing campaign’s ties to Russia.

Separately, authorized consultants have noted that the classification of information associated to nuclear weapons or “restricted data” is ruled by a separate authorized framework fully, the Atomic Energy Act. That legislation does not explicitly give the president the authority to declassify nuclear secrets and techniques unilaterally and establishes a strict course of for declassification that includes a number of businesses. It is unclear whether or not paperwork saved at Mar-a-Lago included “restricted data.”

Chris Cameron contributed reporting.