It must have been a hectic scene when Trump was leaving the White House in January 2021, but that doesn’t mean that the White House ushers and military aides packing up for him would have been able to access, say, a triple-locked safe and box up the nuclear codes for shipment to Palm Beach. If they had tried, someone would have stopped them, or, failing that, immediately called The Washington Post to blow the whistle.

The materials in the president’s daily brief are carried into the White House in a locked bag and carried out in a locked bag. The protocols around the handling of documents included in meetings in the Situation Room are very strict. The agencies that bring secret materials to meetings with the president and White House officials are responsible for bringing them back out.