Donald Trump Asks US Supreme Court To Block Release To Capitol Riot Probe
Former US president Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to block the release of White House records to a congressional committee investigating the January 6 assault on the Capitol by his supporters.
Trump asked the nation’s highest court to stay a ruling this month by a federal appeals court which rejected his attempt to keep the documents and records secret.
Trump, who has been accused of fomenting the assault on Congress, is seeking to exercise his privilege as a former president to keep White House records that might relate to the attack under wraps.
The appeals court agreed with a lower court this month that ruled that President Joe Biden could waive executive privilege on the records so they could be handed over to the panel investigating the violence by Trump supporters.
In a filing with the Supreme Court, Trump’s lawyers argued that “a former president has the right to assert executive privilege, even after his term of office.”
They condemned the congressional records request as “strikingly broad” and accused the committee in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives of conducting an investigation of a “political foe.”
“Congress may not rifle through the confidential, presidential papers of a former President to meet political objectives,” Trump’s lawyers said.
“In an increasingly partisan political climate, such records requests will become the norm regardless of what party is in power,” they said.
Trump’s lawyers defended executive privilege, saying it affects “the ability of presidents and their advisers to reliably make and receive full and frank advice, without concern that communications will be publicly released to meet a political objective.”
The US Court of Appeals agreed to delay the release of the White House records until lawyers for the former Republican president could file their appeal to the Supreme Court.
Trump’s lawyers asked the conservative majority Supreme Court to schedule a hearing on whether the probe request is constitutional and to block release of the documents in the meantime.
