On February 7, 2022, the National Archives posted a statement now collected on its “Press Statements in Response to Media Queries About Presidential Records” page. It said that in mid-January 2022 NARA arranged transport from the Trump Mar-a-Lago property of 15 boxes that contained presidential records, after 2021 discussions with Trump representatives. It said those records should have transferred at the end of the administration in January 2021. It said Trump representatives had informed NARA they were still searching.
The statement quoted Archivist David S. Ferriero: “The Presidential Records Act mandates that all Presidential records must be properly preserved by each Administration so that a complete set of Presidential records is transferred to the National Archives at the end of the Administration.” And: “NARA pursues the return of records whenever we learn that records have been improperly removed or have not been appropriately transferred to official accounts.” And the democracy line: “The Presidential Records Act is critical to our democracy… Records matter.”
Those are his public words. They are not a jury verdict. They are not a finding that a statute was violated. They are NARA’s on-the-record framing, issued while he still held the office.