That's literally what case law is, similar facts to similar instances to allow similar legal outcomes. Context is the most important factor though
Yes, but your understanding of it is askew. Context is the key, to damn near everything.
Case law is...
case law. Precedent does matter when it comes to
verdicts of cases.
Precedent doesn't really apply when it comes to if a prosecutor decides to prosecute or not. They're looking at the case in the context if the accusations warrant charges.
In these two particular cases, they are
not the same thing. Remember that Trump is
not being charged with the possession of classified documents. That was just the catalyst for the charges. The main charge facing Trump is the mishandling of information relating to national security under the Espionage Act. It doesn't matter if the information was classified or not in that case, it's just that if it was classified information, it's much easier to prosecute.
The circumstances and context between Clinton and Trump's situations are wildly different.
In Clinton's case, the accusation was that
it was possible that someone could have accessed classified information but there was no actual, specific suspected breach. The question was over the security of Clintons email server and the improper storage of the information.
In Trump's case, the accusation is that people DID access the classified... or at the very least, privelaged, information due to the low/basically no security Trump had for the documents. It's an accusation... but part of the reason for the prosecution pursuing it is that they say they have audio recordings of Trump showing people the documents and
admitting they aren't supposed to be seeing them.
The two situations are really nothing alike. They deal with a similar subject matter, but the context is wildly different between the two.
(And then, in the case of Biden, there were some potentially unsecured or minimally secured classified documents he shouldn't have had, with no reasonable suspicion of them having been accessed. When asked by the National Archives for the return, Biden immediately complied and returned the documents... even though as President, he didn't
really need to but there no sense in making a spectacle out of it.)
In the grand scheme, it's Trump's general bravado that gets the better of him. Had Trump just returned the documents quietly and when requested, it probably would not have registered much on anyone's radar. Trump brought the trouble to himself by making it all a circus.