Former President Donald Trump on Friday vowed to “take all necessary and appropriate steps” to shield his presidential records from an “extremely broad” request from …
Former President Donald Trump on Friday vowed to “take all necessary and appropriate steps” to shield his presidential records from an “extremely broad” request from the House committee investigating the Capitol riot — setting up a potential court battle after President Biden said that the Democrat-led committee should get the documents. There’s uncertainty about how a court case would end due to how rare it is to have such fights over the records of former presidents, which are stored by the National Archives. Trump wrote in a letter to the Archives that an initial tranche of records “potentially numbering in the millions” can’t be released to the committee because of legal protections “including but not limited to the presidential communications, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges.” A legal fight could delay or scuttle the committee’s request. The Biden White House says that the Jan.6 storming of the US Capitol by a wild mob of Trump supporters who disrupted certification of the Electoral College results is a historically unique event that requires transparency. “The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not warranted for the first set of documents from the Trump White House that have been provided to us by the National Archives,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Friday at her daily briefing. “As we’ve said previously, this will be an ongoing process and this is just the first set of documents, and we will evaluate questions of privilege on a case by case basis.” Psaki added, “The president has also been clear that he believes it to be of the utmost importance for both Congress and the American people to have a complete understanding of the events of that day to prevent them from happening again.
