A federal judge suggested on Thursday that she was skeptical of former United States President Donald Trump's attempts to shield White House records from being accessed by the House Select Committee responsible for investigating the events of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The situation is the latest in a series of legal battles between the former U.S. president and the committee. It also casts doubt on the possibility of the Republican businessman being able to overrule United States President Joe Biden's decision to release House records to investigators.
Release of House Records
During a hearing on Trump's lawsuit that aims to hinder the progress of the committee's investigations, District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said there was only one executive. The official repeatedly seemed not to believe Trump's attempts to block Congress from acquiring crucial House records.
Chutkan said that the situation was a rare find because Congress and the current White House administration were cooperating with each other. Then comes Trump, the former president, and does not have authority over either side, Yahoo News reported.
In the two-hour oral argument in federal court in Washington, Chutkan said that the person in the best position to determine executive privilege was the current executive, Biden. Despite the situation becoming a rivalry between the former and current U.S. presidents, the federal judge said there was only one executive in the American government.
The situation comes after Trump, on Oct. 18, sued the chairman of the House's Jan. 6 select committee and the head of the National Archives to block the release of key House records. The incident came at a time when the committee had also issued subpoenas to four top aides, including former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and adviser Stephen K. Bannon.
Despite being a former president, Trump's attorneys said that the Republican businessman still had a residual right to executive privilege. The former U.S. president's lawyers added that leading the nation required "full and frank" advice to carry out their duties properly. They argued that those deliberations must survive more than a few months or years after they leave the office to protect the institution of the presidency, the Washington Post reported.
Broad Requests
President Biden had previously rejected Trump's claim of executive privilege and has allowed the National Archives, who is responsible for holding the records, for releasing them to the committee in compliance with the latter's requests. The committee argued that the documents were crucial to further understanding the inner workings of the government during the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot.
Justin Clark, Trump's attorney, said on Thursday that not only was the request for the documents subject to executive privilege, they were also extremely broad. He said that they did not lend themselves to a valid legislative purpose for the House.
But Chutkan seemed to have been unconvinced of Trump's side and its arguments against the release of the documents. Additionally, the federal judge questioned Clark's claims that the committee had other means of investigating the riot, including subpoenas. Chutkan noted that Trump had previously urged individuals who have been issued subpoenas not to comply, CBS News reported.
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