Trump makes executive privilege threat as House committee seeks documents from agencies on January 6

[steve2470]

Source: CNN

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to invoke executive privilege in an effort to block the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot from obtaining a massive tranche of documents it's demanding from several US government agencies, despite his successor having the ultimate say over whether the information can be shared.

"Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my Administration and the Patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our Nation," Trump said in a statement, without detailing how such an effort would be conducted.

The Biden administration has already declined to assert executive privilege over some testimony related to January 6, telling former Justice Department officials that they were free to provide "unrestricted testimony." But the administration has not weighed in on whether the committee should have unrestricted access to records and documents from the Trump White House.

The document requests from the House select committee echo those previously issued by other House committees in the aftermath of the January 6 riot, while significantly broadening the search to other areas and people inside and outside government. Specifically, the select committee is asking for records from the Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, Department of Defense, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Homeland Security and, perhaps most importantly, the National Archives -- the custodian of the Trump administration White House records.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/politics/january-6-house-documents-investigation/index.html

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Why am I not surprised at all ? I hope the Committee and the Federal courts put this litigation on the "rocket dockets" (?) to expedite this to SCOTUS where I am quite sure this will go. Hopefully SCOTUS will just turn him down cold, instead of wasting time on his bullshit criminal nonsense. I really really dislike that man more than any other human on the earth.


eta: By Zachary Cohen, Ryan Nobles, Annie Grayer and Whitney Wild, CNN

Updated 10:02 PM ET, Wed August 25, 2021


eta2: If you are really curious and have a strong stomach, here's the criminal's statement: https://thedeskofdonaldtrump.com/these-democrats-only-have-one-tired-trick/