President Donald Trump’s White House records can be handed over to the Capitol attack panel.
A federal judge denied Trump’s request to block the release of documents related to the Jan. 6 insurrection, meaning that the select committee investigating the attack can have access to the requested White House records held by the National Archives.
Trump sued the committee in October as well as the National Archives in a now-failed attempt to block his records from viewing, claiming it was executive privilege. He alleged that his records are subject to a certain level of confidentiality, and that they should be shielded from public scrutiny.
But Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan said this was not the case. Therefore, the records are set to transfer over to the committee on November 12.
Trump’s attorneys have quickly slapped together an appeal to the ruling, filing it in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The committee has sought the records in an attempt to further understand the events leading up to, during, and following the assault on the Capitol.
The judge said that the request for the documents “cast a wide net” in its breadth, but that the court will not second guess the request by undertaking a document-by-document review. She said that the public interest weighed in favor of releasing the documents.
President Joe Biden rejected Trump’s claim of executive authority following the committee’s urgency that they require the documents. Biden permitted the National Archives to comply with the House committee request, prompting Trump’s lawsuit.
Chutkan wrote that therefore it’s a dispute between a former and current President, and that Supreme Court precedents have made it clear that the incumbent’s view has a greater weight.
About Trump and his desire to block the records from being accessed, Chutkan wrote: “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”
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