The Comey standard is actually a part of the espionage act. Just being ignored for Trump.

We all remember the "no reasonable prosecutor" speech that James Comey gave where he suggested that Hillary meant to harm by keeping all her classified documents on an unauthorized and unsecured server.

Thirty-one of the 37 counts fall under the Espionage Act, which criminalizes allegations that require a showing—under 18 U.S. Code § 793—that someone “having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document … relating to the national defense” “willfully retain[ed] the same and fail[ed] to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it.”

The pictures in the indictment are clearly designed to drive home the gross mishandling of documents to the public. No one is seriously going to argue that storing documents in a ballroom or next to a commode are good retention practices.

The law references an intent either to harm the national security of the U.S. or benefit a foreign power. No one is suggesting that harm actually occurred or that Trump intended to cause such harm. However, the government is proceeding under specific provisions making mishandling (and the refusal to turn over documents) a crime. That is the harm that the government will argue.

The logic for not charging Hillary Clinton was tortured. Comey suggested while Clinton did put the country at risk with her negligence that she "meant" no real harm to our national security and therefor shouldn't be charged. In reality Hillary was probably not trying to harm national security as much she was just attempting to circumvent FOIA laws. However, Comey ignored that Clinton "did" create harm with her purposeful negligence and otherwise bad intent as the server was confirmed to have been hacked by foreign entities. That is why the laws regarding "negligence" require no "intent" to satisfy the mens rea requirements. Just that they were willfully negligent and that negligence caused harm.

Nobody is suggesting that any foreign adversary was in Mar-a-Lago stealing documents or that Trump was looking to sell classified documents to the highest bidder. With Trump (as with Clinton), there really doesn't appear to be any intent or any "real" harm done to national security. Everyone understands that this became a pissing match and whatever Trump wanted to keep was for personal reasons. As Turley suggests, the DOJ is going to suggest that the "harm" was just that he kept the documents. For all practical purposes they are treating the espionage act as a process crime. That the crime was that he didn't follow their requests.

Tale of two arguments

The difference being argued by the left is that Hillary was an idiot who didn't understand how classification works and didn't realize that these new-fangled computer thingies could be hacked. She was just a confused old lady who didn't intend to put her country at risk. But Trump is smart enough to understand classification and knew that he was not supposed to be keeping these classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The fact that Clinton "caused" real harm can only be argued away by demanding she is a halfwit. That was basically their argument and these same people wanted the half-witted old fool to be President too!

Whereas the argument from the right is that the only halfwit was Comey for suggesting anyone believed Clinton didn't understand the ABCs of classified documents and the potential harm of her homegrown server. Clinton got away with mishandling classified documents in a manner that caused real harm, whereas Trump is being charged in spite of nobody being able to suggest that any real harm has come from the classified documents being at Mar-a-Lago. The idea of a crime is you have a perpetrator and a victim. The only victim in Trump's case appears to be a whiny NARA and a partisan FBI/DOJ. There was no harm to any national security.

Again, think about the fact that the Chicago warehouse that keeps Obama's presidential records also had classified documents. Joe Biden had them in boxes in his garage. Nobody from the FBI or DOJ has suggested any a crime or a national security concern with ether case. Or at least not so far. Apparently we simply trust that anyone who has a "D" behind their name and has issues with classified documents are just making honest mistakes.

The DOJ has attempted to simply parse out everything and only apply certain things to Trump. But if the "only" difference is whether or not he cooperated, then the idea of charging him under the espionage act is nonsensical. You either charge everyone who had documents where they were not supposed to, or you charge nobody.