Trump Suit to Keep Riot Files Secret Draws Skepticism From Judge
Trump Suit to Keep Riot Files Secret Draws Skepticism From Judge
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump’s efforts to block the release of documents to the U.S. House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot were met with skepticism by a federal judge.
At a hearing in Washington on Thursday morning, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan peppered a lawyer for the former president with questions, challenging his assertion that releasing the documents would threaten the separation of powers. But Chutkan also cautioned that some of the House committee’s requests seemed “unbelievably broad,” including a demand for some of Trump’s communications dating back to April 2020.
“There has to be some limit,” she said.
Trump asked the court in October to stop the national archivist from releasing the documents to Congress, invoking executive privilege, which allows the president to keep certain records confidential. Typically executive privilege is reserved for the current occupant of the White House, but in this case President Joe Biden has waived it. Trump’s lawyers are arguing that a former president should maintain some ability to invoke it.
One President
Chutkan pushed back on that argument.
“There’s only one executive,” she told Trump’s lawyer, Justin Clark. “The current executive asserts that privilege on behalf of the executive branch, and here he has done so and decided that there is no executive privilege.”
Trump’s lawsuit is the latest chapter in a long-running legal battle over the events of Jan. 6. Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and the chair of the committee, has also sued Trump, alleging he incited the violence. In addition, Trump is facing a civil suit from police officers who clashed with the rioters. And in the months since the attack, the Justice Department has filed criminal charges against hundreds of those who stormed the Capitol.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
The committee -- which is made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans -- began investigating the assault over the summer, with House Republican leaders refusing to participate and calling the probe politically motivated. In addition to seeking records from the White House, the panel has subpoenaed documents and testimony from former Trump advisers, including political strategist Steve Bannon and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
‘Document Dump’
The records that Trump is trying to keep secret from the committee include daily presidential diaries, schedules, appointments showing White House visitors, call logs and drafts of speeches or correspondence related to the insurrection. At the hearing, Clark called the request a “document dump” that “drives a truck right through the constitutionally based privilege for a former president and turns it into a partisan exercise.”
“I’m going to ask you to dial down the rhetoric a bit,” Chutkan said.
Later in the hearing, she sharply questioned the lawyer for the House committee, Douglas Letter, asking about the relevance of certain requested records, including months of presidential communications and polling data gathered by the Trump campaign. Letter argued that the document request had to extend beyond the days leading up to the riot because the House is trying to determine how Trump riled up far-right groups over several months.
“This attack didn’t just come out of nowhere,” Letter said. “This wasn’t just some spontaneous thing that arose on the morning of Jan. 6.”
The case is Trump v. Thompson, 21-cv-02769, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
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