The US Supreme Court on Wednesday denied President Trump’s efforts to keep White House records from the January 6 Committee.
Trump asserted executive privilege over hundreds of pages of documents, but Joe Biden said the records should be released to Congress.
House lawyers argued the sham committee needs Trump’s records “to complete a thorough investigation into how the actions of the former president, his advisers, and other government officials may have contributed to the attack on Congress to impede the peaceful transfer of presidential power.”
Trump filed an application for stay with mandate and injunction pending review with the US Supreme Court after a 3-judge panel for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his effort to block the records.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s request to stop the National Archives from giving the House Select Committee probing January 6 hundreds of documents.
Clarence Thomas was the only justice who said the court should have granted Trump’s motion while the case is under review.
NBC News reported:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected former President Donald Trump’s effort to stop the National Archives from giving the House Jan. 6 committee hundreds of pages of documents from his time in the White House.
The court’s action clears the way for the National Archives to hand the material over now, while the Supreme Court in the meantime decides whether to hear Trump’s broader appeal of lower court rulings that said he could not stop the material from being produced by asserting executive privilege.
Only Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should have granted the Trump motion to block the National Archives from handing the material over while the case is under review.
There is no deadline for the court to decide whether to take up the Trump appeal. But Wednesday’s order means that even if the former president eventually wins on the legal point about the strength of a former president’s privilege, any victory would be a hollow one, because the documents will have been turned over in the meantime.
