One of Donald Trump’s favorite lawsuit tricks is to throw his body and soul into the dirt creating a drag on any legal progress. That way, he hopes the case will just die a natural death. Take the January 6 Select Committee. The ex-president has managed to stall releasing his White House records and cause the Democrats significant problems.
After all, should they lose the House to the Republicans, the Select Committee will just dissolve. And then, Trump will face no culpability for his attempted coup on our American Democracy, according to The New York Times.
The committee’s attorneys filed a brief’s Oral Arguments with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, writing that the delay of records was “interfering with its legislative duty:”
‘Delay itself would inflict a serious constitutional injury on the Select Committee by interfering with its legislative duty. The Select Committee needs the documents now because they will shape the direction of the investigation. For example, the documents could inform which witnesses to depose and what questions to ask them, as well as whether further subpoenas should be issued to others.’
The Roll Call noted that without Trump’s records, the Select Committee’s investigation would be “worse than useless:”
‘Investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack without records from Trump would be “worse than useless.”‘
The ex-president appealed the Committee’s case to obtain his records after a trial judge refused to halt the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) from releasing them. Trump claimed that President Joe Biden was working with the congressional investigation, and that was a violation of his own executive privileges.
As a result of that appeal, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed to hear oral arguments in one week. In addition, they allowed Trump a temporary injunction against the release of his records until they heard the case.
The POLITICO’s Legal Affairs Reporter Kyle Cheney tweeted that the release of Trump’s records was “urgent:”
‘NEW: The Jan. 6 committee told an appeals court today that its effort to obtain Trump’s White House records is urgent to protect the 2022 / 2024 elections.’
The former president’s attorneys claimed that the Committee’s request was too broad. Instead, they asked the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overturn Federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan’s original ruling to release his records. They said that it was a matter of the balance of powers between the executive and legislative branches.
The nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight tweeted it had “filed dozens of FOIA (Freedom of Information Act):”
‘Former President Trump and his allies tried to pressure DOJ officials to help overturn his 2020 election loss. We have filed dozens of #FOIA requests and multiple lawsuits for records that could shed light on Trump‘s alarming plot.’
Fortunately, former Attorney General William Barr under Donald Trump kept complete records of his phone calls with the 45th president discussing overthrowing President Biden’s win. The public has a right to see them.
Citizens for Ethics (CREW) targets government officials “who sacrifice the common good to special interests” via “high-impact legal actions.” It tweeted:
‘It appears Bill Barr kept records of his conversations with Trump regarding overturning the election, because Barr said so himself. The release of those records is a matter of public interest.’
However, the ex-president’s attorneys argued that releasing his personal documents would “have enormous consequences:”
‘The stakes in this case are high. A decision upholding the Committees’ request to NARA would have enormous consequences, forever changing the dynamics between the political branches.
‘It is naïve to assume that the fallout will be limited to President Trump or the events of January 6, 2021. Every Congress will point to some unprecedented thing about ‘this President’ to justify a request for his presidential records. In these hyper-partisan times, Congress will increasingly and inevitably use this new weapon to perpetually harass its political rival.’
The Select Committee’s filing continued, noting that unless NARA released the former POTUS’ records, it could not adequately do the work of its investigation:
‘To do so, the Committee needs to know what, if anything, Mr. Trump, his advisers, and others close to him knew or publicly communicated relating to the efforts to undermine or overturn the results of the 2020 election.’
The House’s Committee claimed in court on Monday that Trump’s White House records, which would include discussions among the former president’s top advisers, were essential. They would be integral in investigating what happened before and during the attempted coup. The primary reason this committee needed to know was so that in the future, there would be no repeat.
Three White Lions podcast, Gloria Christie reads her week’s most important news/ commentary stories in the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Gloria Christie Report her newsletter for people on the go. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor in a briefer version of Bipartisan Report. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery currently in progress. Find her here on Facebook.
