The US government reclaimed 300-plus classified documents from Trump, The New York Times reported.
The National Archives spent much of 2021 trying to retrieve government property, the outlet said.
But Trump reportedly described the items as "mine" and resisted efforts to return the materials.
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Former President Donald Trump resisted returning official materials from his presidency as the National Archives and Records Administration spent much of 2021 trying to retrieve the government property, including communications with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and former President Barrack Obama, The New York Times reported Monday.
Upon learning that two dozen boxes of the Trump administration's presidential records had been moved from the Oval Office to the White House residence, where they had been residing for several months, officials with the National Archives spent a good deal of 2021 trying to recover them, the outlet reported.
The Presidential Records Act states that all official materials remain government property and must be handed over to the National Archives upon a president's departure.
Two former White House officials who were tasked with representing the former president to the National Archives were contacted by the agency and tried to secure the documents' return, The Times said.
But Trump rejected their efforts, calling the boxes of documents "mine," three advisors told the outlet.
Among the most prominent items the National Archives was seeking to reclaim were Trump's original letters with Kim and the note Obama left Trump ahead of the latter's inauguration, The Times reported.
Trump's apparent evasion of the archives agency shines a new light on his legal troubles following an FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, when federal agents seized 26 boxes of documents, including 11 sets marked as "classified" — one of which had the highest security level of "top secret."
The Times this week reported the government had retrieved more than 300 classified documents from Trump since he left office in January 2021. The former president returned the first set in January of this year, his Justice Department aides delivered a second batch in June, and the FBI claimed additional material in the raid.
It's not immediately clear how these documents are traditionally stored in the White House or how they should be stored in the National Archives, but several people familiar with the investigation told The Times that the FBI found documents in a container that was in a closet in Trump's office.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, nor did a representative with the Justice Department.
jkuhl on August 23rd, 2022 at 04:52 UTC »
To this day I'll never understand the GOP's worship of this man. I don't get it. At all.
creosoteflower on August 23rd, 2022 at 03:20 UTC »
Trump is made of crime. His entire being, every molecule of it, is crooked. He's a super spreader of felonies. And yet he has never spent an hour in jail, in the 70 years of his existence. It's enough to make a person lose faith in the system.
bildo72 on August 23rd, 2022 at 02:43 UTC »
When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same. The temperament is not that different. - Donald "Petulant Manchild" Trump