(FiveNation.com)- The Biden administration has once again rejected the executive privilege claims of former President Donald Trump in the case of documents that the House investigating committee for the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol building has requested.
As a result, the White House has directed the National Archives to turn over any documents from the Trump administration that the House investigating committee wants to see.
After consulting with the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, Dana Remus, the counsel for the White House, said President Joe Biden determined that Trump’s assertion to executive privilege “is not justified.”
In a letter that Remus sent to David Ferriero, the national archivist, on Monday, she indicated that Trump made two additional assertions of executive privilege. She wrote:
“President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to the documents provided to the White House on September 16, 2021, and September 23, 2021.
“Accordingly, President Biden does not uphold the former President’s assertion of privilege.”
Trump had filed a lawsuit in federal court that sought to block the House investigating committee from gaining access to records they requested from his time in the White House. The committee had made a request for documents that include call logs, schedules and other documents that came from January 6.
Earlier in October, the Biden White House said it wouldn’t assert its executive privilege to stop the House committee from accessing those documents it had requested.
Officials at the White House said they would consider the committee’s requests for documents on a case-by-case basis.
The letter sent from Remus on Monday didn’t specifically identify the documents Ferriero should release to the committee, only saying they were a “subset of documents” the committee requested.
Remus’ letter said the National Archives should turn over the pages of the documents the committee requested within 30 days of sending notification to Trump “absent any intervening court order.”
On Monday, Remus reiterated the views from the White House that Congress does indeed have a “compelling need” to understand all the circumstances that may have led to the January 6 attack on the Capitol building. In that regard, they said executive privilege, which is a constitutional right, “should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”
The lawsuit Trump filed in Washington, D.C., federal court last week tried to block the House panel from gaining access to documents that are being held by the National Archives. In the filing, Trump argued that the committee hasn’t yet demonstrated a legitimate legislative purpose for why they would be overriding his claims of executive privilege.
The filing also claimed the House committee’s request was unconstitutional because of its wide breadth.
The committee has since said it would fight that lawsuit.
