The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a ruling in response to a lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump seeking to protect White House documents from a Democrat-controlled House committee.
In a Tuesday morning action, justices ruled Trump cannot block the House committee probing what happened at the U.S. Capitol last year from accessing administration records.
Yahoo News :
The court’s decision to formally reject Trump’s appeal follows its Jan. 19 order that led to the documents being handed over to the House of Representatives investigative committee by the federal agency that stores government and historical records.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Dec. 9 upheld a lower court ruling that Trump had no basis to challenge President Joe Biden’s decision to allow the records to be handed over to the House of Representatives select committee. Trump then appealed to the Supreme Court
Trump and his allies have waged an ongoing legal battle with the House select committee seeking to block access to documents and witnesses. Trump has sought to invoke a legal principle known as executive privilege, which protects the confidentially of some internal White House communications, a stance rejected by lower courts.
The House committee has said it needed the records to understand any role Trump may have played in fomenting the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021. His supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to prevent Congress from formally certifying Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.
The committee sought phone records, visitor logs and written communications between the former president and his advisors from the National Archives. Trump had claimed executive privilege, but President Joe Biden waived that claim and ordered the documents released to the committee, setting a new precedent.
And because Biden did not protect the documents with executive privilege the appeals court decided that the former president could not.
“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,” the court said.
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