What is a "personal record" under the Presidential Records Act? The definition in the act is relatively short and simple, so here's the entire, unabridged text:
(3) The term "personal records" means all documentary materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, of a purely private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. Such term includes—
(A) diaries, journals, or other personal notes serving as the functional equivalent of a diary or journal which are not prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the course of, transacting Government business;
(B) materials relating to private political associations, and having no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President; and
(C) materials relating exclusively to the President’s own election to the office of the Presidency; and materials directly relating to the election of a particular individual or individuals to Federal, State, or local office, which have no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.
This isn't complicated. Personal records are things that have no relation to official presidential business. Period. There's nothing more to it.
Donald Trump has claimed that the president has sole and unreviewable authority to decide if a record is personal. You don't need to be a lawyer to see that the PRA says no such thing. It says only that materials should be designated as personal "upon their creation" and be "filed separately." There's nothing about the president's decision being absolute or about declaring records to be personal after leaving office.
Why the history lesson? Because today judge Aileen Cannon, who's presiding over Trump's classified documents case, issued a bizarre order asking lawyers for both sides to submit hypothetical sets of jury instructions. One set has to assume the jury decides, as a matter of fact, which records are personal. The second set has to assume that if the president says they're personal, that's it. They're personal.
What is possibly the point of this? The second scenario is entirely groundless and accomplishes nothing except to chew up the lawyers' time. So is that all this is? An amateurish attempt to once again delay things? It makes no sense as anything else.