Denying he had the documents, swearing he had returned all documents, and then only giving up the documents when the authorities were forced to search for them is a "nuanced" concept of forthright.
And don't forget lying about the situation after the fact... that he had declassified them telepathically (No, he can't do that), that Obama took a bunch of documents (Obama went through proper channels to access materials from his time in office), that somehow Mar a Lago is some sort of secure super-fortress (documents were found in his desk drawer, accessible to people like his lawyers, who did not have security clearance.)