Trump took the infamous hurricane map he doctored with as Sharpie when he left the White House, report says

• Trump had to return 15 boxes of items wrongly taken from the White House after his presidency, NYT reported.
• Among them was a doctored hurricane map he used in a 2019 briefing, the report said.

Among the letters, documents, and other items that former President Donald Trump wrongfully took from the White House after his presidency was a doctored hurricane-trajectory map he used in an infamous 2019 White House briefing, The New York Times reported.

Trump had taken the official presidential records during his hasty exit from his White House personal residence in early 2021, The Times reported, and handed over 15 boxes of those items to the National Archives last month.

They included a personal letter that President Barack Obama wrote to him when he took office, letters from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — as well as the hurricane map he used in an infamous 2019 White House briefing on Hurricane Dorian, The Times reported.

In that briefing, Trump held up an official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map that had been altered with black marker, apparently to support his false claim that the hurricane would extend to Alabama.

Federal government meteorologists had issued a statement days earlier rebutting that claim, but Trump refused to back down. A White House official told The Washington Post that Trump himself used a Sharpie to alter the map.

It's unclear why the former president would have wanted to keep the map as a memento.

According to The Times, Trump left the White House in haste after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, having spent most of the time after the defeat trying to overturn the election and cling on to power, instead of preparing to depart.

Many of the aides who would have helped him prepare for departure were also trying to avoid him in his final weeks, the report said.

Trump has been locked in a dispute with the National Archives, which preserves White House documents for public scrutiny and historical record. The former president sought to block the agency's release of documents to the House commission investigating Capitol riot, but the Supreme Court ruled against him in January.

According to multiple reports, including testimony from former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, Trump destroyed records in "burn bags" or held off-the-books meetings during his time in office — in apparent violation of record-keeping rules.