It turns out that the document memorializing Lincoln’s famous speech on Nov. 19, 1863, never should have been sent to the Mercury Museum in Irving, Texas, according to a report by a government watchdog released on Friday.

Illinois investigators said the presidential library’s former executive director, Alan Lowe, had rushed to lend the document to Mr. Beck on less than two weeks’ notice, calling it an unusual and risky move that put the artifact in danger. They also faulted Mr. Lowe and the museum’s former chief operating officer for letting Mr. Beck’s charity pay for their plane tickets and hotel stays in Texas when they traveled to the Mercury Museum…

The report’s authors said Mr. Lowe had violated at least two policies of the state’s Historic Preservation Agency: one that expressly banned loans of the Gettysburg Address and another that required loan requests to be submitted six months in advance. Mr. Lowe told investigators he thought the museum was not bound by those rules after 2017, when it became an independent state agency, but investigators dismissed that claim.