Most folks believe they were looking for classified documents. I don't! I believe they already know for sure the documents had been declassified.
Trump is a businessman. Everything he has ever done has come signed and sealed in a contract. He is not just going to announce he declassified the documents detailing their criminal activities, and expect the world to take his word for it especially when he knows they and their media toadies will push that he is just lying to cover his ass. Trump would have a 'contract'. Something in writing that is dated and signed and very likely witnessed, maybe even by some of the deep state puppets themselves.
In order to try him for releasing classified documents they would have to lie and say that they were still sealed.
They had to get Trump's 'contract', and they didn't find it. They have gone ahead without that crucial piece of evidence, which means they will be trapped when it is produced. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if some of the whitehats had told them it was at Mar-a-Lago just so they would expose themselves.
It is my understanding that there is no protocol for him to declassify anything because he is the elected executive of our country. The protocol is for anyone else to follow if they want to declassify something.
This is really the defining issue of who we are as a country right now. Either the deep state can tell the executive what he can and cannot do, or the executive can tell the IC community. We are either a tyranny, with unelected 3 letter agencies calling the shots, or we are a Republic, where "we the people" are in charge. Once everyone figures this out, it should get righted.