últimas notícias

But it is unclear how much bandwidth either man had to deal with the issue. Mr. Trump was on contentious terms with Mr. Cipollone after the election, and often berated the lawyer for objecting to his attempts to subvert Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, according to former officials.

Adding to the disarray was the absence of the White House staff secretary, Derek Lyons, who managed paperwork inside the executive complex but had stepped down on Dec. 18, 2020. That left Mr. Meadows, a former House member with no significant executive experience before joining Mr. Trump’s staff, responsible for overseeing a transition process the president wanted no part of.

Mr. Meadows’s immediate predecessors in that role — President Barack Obama’s last chief of staff, Denis McDonough, and President George W. Bush’s final chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten — had created teams to scrub West Wing offices of anything that belonged to the archives and made the stewardship of government records a priority.

It is unclear whether Mr. Meadows took the same measures, former aides said. But in the administration’s final weeks, the White House emailed all of its offices detailed instructions about returning documents and cleaning out their spaces. Mr. Meadows followed up on those notes and encouraged offices to comply, according to a person familiar with those conversations.

Mr. Meadows also assured White House staff members that he would talk to Mr. Trump about securing records, including ones stashed in the residence, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.