Jan. 6 records Trump seeks to bar listed

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump is seeking to block from release a wide range of documents related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the National Archives said Saturday in an early morning federal court filing.

In the filing, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, John Laster, director of the National Archives’ presidential materials division, laid out for the first time exactly which documents Trump is fighting to keep secret. The former president is hoping to prevent the documents from being reviewed by the House committee empowered to investigate the mob violence at the Capitol.

According to the filing, Trump has asserted executive privilege over 770 pages of documents, including 46 pages of records from the files of Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff; Stephen Miller, his former senior adviser; and Patrick Philbin, his former deputy counsel. Trump is also objecting to the release of the White House Daily Diary, as well as logs showing phone calls to the president and to Vice President Mike Pence concerning Jan. 6, Laster wrote.

Trump has also asserted executive privilege over 656 pages that include proposed talking points for Kayleigh McEnany, his former press secretary; a handwritten note concerning Jan. 6; a draft text of a presidential speech for the “Save America” rally that preceded the mob attack; and a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity, the filing states.

Finally, Trump asserted executive privilege over 68 additional pages, including a draft proclamation honoring the Capitol Police and two officers who died after the riot, Brian D. Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, as well as related emails; a memo about a potential lawsuit against several states that Joe Biden won in the November election; an email chain from a state official regarding election-related issues; and talking points on alleged election irregularities in one Michigan county.

The filing comes in response to a lawsuit Trump filed this month against the National Archives seeking to block the disclosure of White House files related to his actions and communications surrounding the Jan. 6 riot. In that lawsuit, a lawyer for Trump said the Constitution gave the former president the right to demand their confidentiality.