US Capitol attack committee agrees to defer request for some records
The House committee investigating the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol has agreed to defer its request for hundreds of pages of records from the Trump administration, bending to the wishes of the Biden White House.
The deferral is in response to concerns that releasing all the Trump documents sought could compromise national security and executive privilege.
Joe Biden has repeatedly rejected Donald Trump’s efforts to cite executive privilege to block the release of all documents surrounding that day. But the White House is still working with the committee to shield some documents.
The former president is appealing to the supreme court to stop the National Archives and Records Administration co-operating with the committee.
The agreement to keep some Trump-era records shielded is contained in a 16 December letter from the White House counsel’s office. It mostly concerns records that do not involve the events of 6 January but were covered by the request for documents from the Trump White House.
Dozen of pages created on 6 January don’t pertain to the assault on the Capitol. Other documents involve the national security council. Biden officials were worried that if those pages were turned over it would set a troublesome precedent. Other documents are highly classified and the White House asked Congress to work with the agencies that created them to discuss their release.
“The documents for which the select committee has agreed to withdraw or defer its request do not appear to bear on the White House’s preparations for or response to the events of 6 January, or on efforts to overturn the election or otherwise obstruct the peaceful transfer of power,” White House deputy counsel Jonathan Su wrote in one of two letters obtained by the Associated Press.
Su wrote that withholding the documents “should not compromise [the committee’s] ability to complete its critical investigation expeditiously”.
The National Archives has been transmitting tranches of documents to the White House and to lawyers for Trump, who has raised broad objections and specific concerns.
The National Archives has said records Trump wants to block include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts, handwritten notes “concerning the events of 6 January” from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and “a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity”.
Biden has rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege over those documents, including in a letter sent on 23 December regarding about 20 pages.
“The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified,” White House counsel Dana Remus reiterated.
A federal appeals court ruled this month against Trump, and he has filed an appeal to the supreme court, which has yet to decide whether to take up the case.
Judge Patricia Millett, writing for the federal court, said Congress had a “uniquely vital interest” in studying the events of 6 January and Biden had made a “carefully reasoned” determination that the documents were in the public interest.
Trump also failed to show any harm that would occur from the release, Millett wrote.
“On the record before us, former president Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the political branches over these documents,” Millett said.