Trump, Meadows
President Donald Trump speaks as White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (R) listens prior to Trump's Marine One departure from the South Lawn of the White House July 29, 2020 in Washington, DC.Alex Wong/Getty Images
  • Donald Trump didn't return documents after leaving office.

  • The documents were taken by the FBI in a raid.

  • Many people disagreed with Trump's claim that he declassified the documents.

According to The New York Times, Donald Trump didn't return sensitive documents to the US government because he was so focused on his personal vendettas.

According to The Times, efforts to give back classified material fell by the wayside in the last days of his presidency.

According to the sources, Trump and MarkMeadows were consumed bysettling political grievances and personal grudges and ignored the task of passing sensitive documents to the National Archives.

Vice President Mike Pence got his records back as he was focused on the task.

The Insider contacted the spokespeople for the two men.

Following the FBI raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago property, the issue of how Trump handled government documents while in office is under scrutiny.

Highly classified information was retrieved by federal agents. According to a Washington Post report, the agents acted on suspicions that Trump hid important documents.

Even if the opposing party won, the final weeks of a president's time in office are usually spent preparing the incoming administration.

Trump was the only president in US history to refuse to concede defeat after he lost to Joe Biden, and instead spent months pushing baseless conspiracy theories. The January 6 riot was the culmination of this resistance.

The issue of what to do with classified material was never acted upon according to The Times.

According to Trump, he had broadly declassified information that he had kept in Mar-a-Lago. Leon Panetta, former CIA Director, and one-time National Security advisor JohnBolton both said this was not true.

Business Insider has an article on it.