How come no other president, vacating the WH, ever mistakenly took documents?

[sinkingfeeling]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-mar-a-lago-classified-documents-b2157588.html


Mr Trump was speaking to right-wing talk show host John Fredericks when he was asked how reams of national defence information found by the FBI during an 8 August search of his home ended up there instead of being deposited in the National Archives as required by law.

“Then all of a sudden you're leaving, and stuff gets packed up ... all sorts of stuff, you know, mostly the boxes, pictures and newspapers and shirts ... and you know, golf balls and just it's a lot of stuff,” he said.

Mr Trump then said he believed the boxes were transported to Florida by the General Services Administration, a relatively small government agency responsible for federal employee payroll, contracts for and purchasing of things such as office supplies, and maintenance of federal office space. It was also the agency that refused to recognize Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and begin the presidential transition process for weeks after it was clear that Mr Trump had lost.

[patphil]

1. How many boxes of records did he abscond with?

Dozens! It wasn't just a few things interspersed with his stuff. There was some of his stuff interspersed with all the documents he stole.

[WarGamer]

2. "mistakenly"???

Obama did it "so correct" that he literally has a secure warehouse and storage facility in Chicago with NARA representatives onsite.

[Ms. Toad]

5. NARA isn't just on site - it is a NARA facility (in Chicago)

But these records were given to NARA in 2017, upon the end of Obama’s term, and they remain in NARA’s sole custody, in accordance with federal law. Some 30 million documents were moved to a NARA-operated facility in the Chicago area, as the agency explained in a statement Friday, but none were classified. The administration’s classified documents are stored in a separate NARA facility in the Washington, D.C., area.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-obama-million-documents-929954890662

[WarGamer]

7. Best POTUS ever.... everything about the guy was and is "on point"

The first POTUS from my generation and who I felt ANY sort of a kinship with... still miss him.

[Ms. Toad]

3. Pretty sure NARA said they had -

the difference being that no one else fought returning them.

This is the closest to the statement I am recalling that I can find at the moment:

According to NARA, EOP personnel have regularly located prior Administrations’ paper presidential records accidentally left behind within the EOP. When this has happened, EOP personnel have treated them as presidential records subject to the Archivist’s control and promptly transferred them to ARA. And NARA and the EOP have previously entered into memoranda of understanding confirming that the Archivist has responsibility for, and the PRA continues to govern, an outgoing Administration’s presidential records that remain in EOP custody after the end of the President’s term

https://www.justice.gov/olc/file/1355841/download

[Nevilledog]

4. Because they weren't traitors

[Sneederbunk]

6. It's a wonder he did not take the Resolute Desk.

[Walleye]

8. He didn't have to leave all of a sudden. He had two months after the election to get ready and leave