Former President Donald Trump reportedly ignored in a plan late last year — after his Mar-a-Lago home was raided by the FBI — from one of his top lawyers to defuse the federal criminal investigation into his handling of sensitive U.S. government records.

The Washington Post reported that attorney Christopher Kise believed that the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland did not want to charge the former president and that the department would be willing to agree to a settlement in the case if the former president were to return the all the remaining documents.

The report said that Trump was “not interested” in the plan after listening to others in his orbit who urged him to take a more “pugilistic approach.”

Then-Trump attorney Alex Cannon urged the former president to give the documents back to the National Archives in the fall of 2021 and warned him of the serious legal repercussions that he would face if he did not, the report added.

When the National Archives realized in early 2021 that some of Trump’s White House records were missing, they reportedly contacted Patrick Philbin, deputy counsel to then-President Trump, for help in retrieving the documents, according to a report last August.