The head of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential library was forced to resign his position this week after sparring with President Donald Trump over a sword that Trump wanted to gift to King Charles during a recent state visit.

Todd Arrington was reportedly told to either resign or be fired last Monday, and he chose to resign.

“I was obviously shocked and saddened and heartbroken,” Arrington said during an interview with the Kansas News Service. “I have almost 30 years of government service. I’ve never had a bad mark against me.”

When Trump requested in August to be allowed to gift a sword that belonged to Eisenhower and was part of the library's collection to King Charles during a September visit to Great Britain.

A hard no

The sword in question was given to Eisenhower in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. Arrington refused to release it or any other original artifact from the library collection.

He said that by law, he was obligated to preserve any artifacts for the American people.

Eventually, King Charles was gifted a replica “Cadet Saber” from West Point.

The gift was well-received but didn't have the same meaning Eisenhower's sword would have.

Not the reason

When Arrington was told to resign, the sword wasn't given as the reason. He said there hadn't been pushback over his refusal at the time.

Instead, Arrington told CBS News that he was pressured for his resignation because he “could no longer be trusted with confidential information.”

“Three other people with knowledge of the situation described the conflict over the sword," the New York Times revealed. "Two said that Mr. Arrington had also angered officials at the National Archives and Records Administration, which oversees the presidential library system, by sharing information with his staff about changes to longstanding plans for a new education center.”

“We felt very good about the way that everything worked out,” Arrington told the Kansas News Service. “It was a great feather in our cap to have helped figure out this gift for the president to present to the king.”

Trump doesn't have a say in firing someone in Arrington's position; that comes from the head Archivist of the United States. Right now, that is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, though, so Trump might as well have control over it.

The previous archivist, Colleen Shogan, had clashed with Trump over classified documents in 2021, and she was fired in February shortly after Trump took office. There's probably little that happens in the federal government without Trump's fingerprints on it right now, but thats as it should be.