Why didn’t Trump declassify and make these documents public well before the end of his term?
Trump started trying to declassify them in 2018.... but the Swamp basically ignored him. I believe it was in fall 2018, that Rod Rosentein went to Trump and told him if he declassified these while Mueller was going on it would be an obstruction of justice. So Trump tried again in fall of 2020, and again in January 21 right before he left. There is a letter from Mark Meadows, stating per Trumps order, that these documents were declassified. But I don’t think the new administration actually went through with it. They raised some additional issues related to privacy or something like that....
Bottom line, Trump has the constitutional power to do, and he believes he did. So there seems to be no criminal intent on his part. And the GSA has already admitted that at least the 15 boxes of national archive documents were mistakenly sent to Mara-lago.. Those were returned in spring of 2022.