Trump wants to classify data on the storming of the Capitol: the case came to court

Trump is suing White House records, claiming executive privileges. reports CNN

Photo: Shutterstock

On Monday, 45th US President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia court against a special committee of the House of Representatives investigating the January 6 uprising and the National Archives to keep the records of his presidency secret, demanding executive privileges.

Trump's lawsuit is an attempt to block the House committee that is investigating his actions before and during the siege at the Capitol. The trial also marks his latest effort in a long and rocky fight against subpoenas from the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives.

The Biden administration has refused to assert executive authority over the first tranche of Trump-era records, and Trump is currently opposed to publishing some 40 documents.

The lawsuit alleges that House requests for documents from the executive branch are "unprecedented in their breadth and scope and are not linked to any legitimate purpose."

It also claims that President Joe Biden's refusal to protect certain documents was "a political ploy to appease his guerrilla allies."

A Trump spokesman backed this argument in a statement announcing a lawsuit in which Democrats were accused of trying to change the political narrative with their January 6 investigation.

With Biden's approval falling and 2022 slipping out of Democratic control, it's no wonder Democrats and the media want to distract America from: capitulation in Afghanistan, soaring inflation, border crisis, easing COVID mandates and stalled legislative agenda day. “,” said Taylor Budovich, a spokesman for Trump and his political organization.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, and Vice Chairman Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, responded in a joint statement Monday evening that the former President's "clear goal is to prevent the Select Committee from getting to the facts about January 6 and his lawsuit." This is nothing more than an attempt to delay and interfere with our investigation. "We have precedent and the law on our side. We will fight the former President's attempt to obstruct our investigation while we continue to successfully advance our investigation on a number of other fronts."

For its part, the White House has insisted on its decision not to assert the privilege over the documents requested by the committee, arguing in a statement Monday that Trump "abused the president's office and tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power."

“Trump’s actions pose a unique—and existential—threat to our democracy that cannot be hidden. As President Biden has determined, constitutional guarantees of executive branch rights should not be used to protect information that reflects a clear and obvious attempt to undermine the Constitution itself,” White House spokesman Mike Gwin said in a statement.

Among several legal arguments he makes in court, Trump argues that the House committee did not clarify the legislative reasons why he needs the records of Trump's presidency, and that he should have some opportunity to keep his discussions private as president.

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He also argues that the Presidential Archives Law is unconstitutional if it is "read so broadly that it gives the incumbent president unrestricted power to relinquish the executive powers of the previous president just months after the change of administration."

The National Archives is due to turn over the requested documents to Congress by early next month, which will shorten the timeframe for Trump's prosecution if he wants to block the transmission of information to the House of Representatives.

Trump turns to tax filing case for help

In the suit, Trump claims that a House committee is involved in a politically motivated "fishing expedition."

His lawyers say the House committee has no real legislative purpose — and that the Supreme Court said in 2020 that Congress must have such a purpose when asking for information about the president.

The House Elections Committee "clearly believes it has been given free access to request a full set of documents and records," Trump's lawyers wrote Monday.

Some of Trump's arguments in Monday's lawsuit point to a Supreme Court ruling on a 2019 House subpoena to file Trump's tax returns from Mazars USA.

In this case, the Supreme Court sent the subpoena back to the lower court to ensure that separation of powers was not affected and that Congress has a strong legislative basis for obtaining information about the president.

Photo: Shutterstock

The circumstances of this case were different from the lawsuit Trump is now filing. In that case, Congress was seeking Trump's personal financial records, and the case involves "documents produced by the President," said Greg Lipper, a criminal and constitutional defense lawyer in Washington, D.C.

And even in the Mazars case—Jeffrey Robbins, a former Senate lawyer who is now in private practice, told CNN—the Supreme Court "did not rule that the subpoena is invalid or that Congress cannot obtain it."

“The Supreme Court has said repeatedly that Congress should be given enormous deference in conducting investigations and determining what is within its own powers,” Robbins said.

However, Trump's lawsuit against Mazar's subpoena prevented the House of Representatives from obtaining the records until he left office, and the records are still not in the hands of the House Oversight Committee.

The lawsuit against the Archives could also delay House prosecution of White House documents related to January 6 after the next congressional elections, especially if the fight escalates into an appeal process that outlasts Democratic control of the House of Representatives.

“Trump has demonstrated an ability to put pressure on the deferment point,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a law professor at George Washington University Law School and founder of Red Branch Consulting. “He has always been able to use the trial as a weapon, and this is another one of them.”

Archives for document disclosure

In the meantime, Trump has only a few weeks to convince the court to intervene.
The National Archives has told Trump that on Nov. 12 it will turn over to Congress documents it wants to keep secret — unless a court intervenes, according to the former president's lawsuit to fight the release of the documents.

The archives said they consulted with the Justice Department and the White House and decided that the committee should receive the requested documents, even though Trump opposed the publication of some of the records from his presidency, according to a letter from archivist David Ferriero last week.

A copy of this letter is included in Trump's lawsuit on Monday.

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According to the letter, Ferriero notified Trump that the archivist would disclose to a House committee all "relevant" records that President Trump believed were subject to executive privilege on November 12, "in the absence of any court order."

The recently announced schedule for the transfer of archives lends particular urgency to Trump's lawsuit and may prompt Trump to ask the court to intervene immediately to pre-empt the deadline.

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