You're ignoring the part where they knew what he had and asked that an additional lock be placed on the storage room - because the Trump folks had already been working with them to disposition documents that the Government Services Administration *sent* to Mar-a-Lago. Stop acting like he did a Sandy Berger and snuck off with them.
Of course he is. You're talking about a room-temperature IQ on that one.
Besides, that's exactly the narrative the FBI is aiming for. Let's review what we know. Trump declassified a large number of documents by executive order, mostly relating to the Russia collusion investigation by the DOJ and FBI against him. Despite declassification, they were never released to the public or media. When he left office, the National Archives requested Trump turn over his documents, including the bunch of those he declassified about Russiagate. The reporter John Solomon has stated that he recently put in a FOIA request for those documents with the National Archives, and the Archives discovered they didn't have the documents. Then, when asked, Trump's camp told Solomon that they handed over those documents to the DOJ at the DOJ's request. The Archives says they never got any documents from the DOJ. Now the FBI is searching Trump's house looking for the documents Trump claims he's already turned over.
Considering that Trump, his lawyers, and a number of reporters all assert that the documents in question suggest malfeasance on the part of the FBI and DOJ, what makes more sense? Trump has declassified documents that show the FBI and DOJ acted with bias and malice towards him, but he's hiding those documents from the public and the Archives so that they can't be accessed by Solomon. Or that the DOJ has the documents and the FBI is performing kabuki theatre raids in order to pretend that Trump still has them, so that the documents never have to be turned over and released to the public (via the Archives)? Cui Bono?
I wouldn't even conclude either of those scenarios is the most likely. We're talking about government, so it's even odds that they were already in process to be sent, were sent and still stuck in the process of being delivered to DoJ, received and misfiled by DoJ, or simply sitting in someone's queue at DoJ and haven't even been looked at yet.
Classified material is like porno - when it is mailed, it's in a plain wrapper, so there is no way of knowing what it is (or even that it is classified) until you open the outer wrapper and see the markings on the inner wrapper to match it up with the transmittal documents
What would be great is if Trump's people continue to let DoJ and FBI embarrass themselves a little while longer before producing the registered mail receipts showing the documents they were looking for had already been sent weeks prior.
I'm also hearing reports that DoJ is starting to panic over the realization that security cameras that were still recording may have caught them exceeding the authority of what they could search specified in the warrant (with the speculation that they may have engaged in illegal activities during the raid). That is - if they spent 9+ hrs doing a fishing expedition, that is clearly a violation of the 4A since the warrant *has* to be specific ("nuclear launch codes located in a safe in a secure area in his home office" rather than "anything that he might have in his house that is marked as classified.") If they talked about their motivation for the raid or are seen planting evidence - game over.
The real issue here is that GSA *sent* these documents to him when he left office - like they do with many presidents after they leave office.
I do hope Trump runs again and wins. He should do the following:
1. Immediately give every political appointee the boot. 4000 mouth breathers that will no longer be burdens on the taxpayer.
2. Immediately rescind as many EOs as he can without jeopardizing national security.
3. Immediately declassify everything that isn't military or sources/methods. All of it. Too much stuff is classified because it hides violations of the constitution by government (fast and furious, cointelpro, NSA surveillance of US citizens, etc.), because it is politically embarrassing to other governments (yes every government spies on their allies), or because it is proof that a particular politician has broken the law (drugs, sex crimes, murders, etc.)
4. Have a "you fucking guys" discussion with every shitbag RINO to make it abundantly clear that they had better get their act together or they're out.
5. Pressure Congress to enact term limits in the law - utilizing all of those declassified files as political leverage.