President Joe Biden will not be invoking executive privilege over prospective testimony to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot from two former top advisers to Donald Trump, including Michael Flynn and Peter Navarro — both of whom were closely involved in efforts to cast doubts on and ultimately overturn the outcome of the last presidential election. This decision from the president follows similar decisions on related matters, including prospective testimony from ex-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, for whom Biden also declined to invoke executive privilege.
Axios reports that Pres Biden will deny (the shield of) executive privilege to two top advisers to Trump – Mike Flynn and Peter Navarro – two of the absolute worst. This leaves them a choice of cooperating or facing potential criminal referrals from Congress.
— Duty To Warn 🔉 (@duty2warn) March 1, 2022
Axios noted that Biden’s decision “will likely force Flynn and Navarro to make a choice: cooperate with the select committee or face potential criminal referral from Congress to the Department of Justice.” Two ex-aides to Trump, including Meadows and Steve Bannon, have already been formally referred to the Justice Department for prosecution on contempt of Congress, and Bannon has already been charged. (Referrals leave final decisions to Justice Department prosecutors on whether or not to bring charges.) Navarro has touted intentions to fight the push for his testimony up to the U.S. Supreme Court — although any confidence might be fundamentally misplaced, since that court recently rejected an attempt by former President Trump himself to shield certain records of his administration from the riot panel. The court rejected that entreaty even though three of Trump’s own picks currently serve on the bench and despite the fact that the court currently has an overall conservative majority. Investigators on the House riot committee have now already received records from the Trump administration that had been under dispute.
NEW: House Jan 6 Select Committee investigation expands … again
New subpoenas are issued for six Trump allies who pushed claims of election fraud, including Christina Bobb who was “present in the war room of Rudy Giuliani”, per committee
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) March 1, 2022
As deputy White House counsel Jonathan C. Su put it to Flynn’s attorney, “To the extent any privileges could apply to General Flynn’s conversations with the former President or White House staff after the conclusion of his tenure, President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the national interest, and therefore is not justified, with respect to particular subjects within the purview of the Select Committee.” Notably, Flynn did not work for the executive branch in the time period under consideration by the riot committee, seemingly lessening opportunities for legitimate claims of executive privilege in the first place. Attorney David Warrington, who is representing Flynn in these matters, asserted in response to Su that “At no time has Executive Privilege been asserted by us or our client in connection with the Select Committee’s subpoena” — taking what would seem to be a less confrontational approach than Navarro, who replied to Su with, among other things: “See you at the Supreme Court.” Read more at this link.
NEWS: The Jan. 6 select committee revealed Tuesday that Donald Trump had "multiple phone calls" on Jan. 6 with Kurt Olsen, an attorney who had pressed for DOJ to get more involved in contesting the election.
Details on new round of subpoenas TK
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 1, 2022
