Trump Denies Biden's Demand, Sets Stage for Massive Court Battle
Former President Donald Trump will not give President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats what they want.
Trump on Friday fired his first salvo in what likely will be a long legal fight to protect his presidential records from Democrats who have set up a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion.
Trump has demanded in a letter to the National Archives that it not release records to the panel due to legal issues “including but not limited to the presidential communications, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges.”
Trump followed that by calling the situation a political “game,” according to the New York Post.
“The Radical Left Democrats tried the RUSSIA Witch Hunt, they tried the fake impeachments, and now they are trying once again to use Congress to persecute their political opponents. Their requests are not based in law or reality—it’s just a game to these politicians,” Trump said in a statement.
“The Democrats are drunk on power, but this dangerous assault on our Constitution and important legal precedent will not work.
“This Committee’s fake investigation is not about January 6th any more than the Russia Hoax was about Russia. Instead, this is about using the power of the government to silence ‘Trump’ and our Make America Great Again movement, the greatest such achievement of all time.”
White House Counsel Dana Remus sent the National Archives a letter telling the independent government agency to obey Biden, and not Trump, according to NBC.
“President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents,” Remus wrote.
“These are unique and extraordinary circumstances. Congress is examining an assault on our Constitution and democratic institutions provoked and fanned by those sworn to protect them, and the conduct under investigation extends far beyond typical deliberations concerning the proper discharge of the President’s constitutional responsibilities.
“The constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself,” Remus wrote.
Trump fired back at the Biden White House.
“Biden has rejected our request to withhold White House information from the House Unselect Committee investigating the January 6th protest, but has not taken a stance on the insurrection that took place on November 3rd, often referred to as the Crime of the Century,” Trump said in a statement, referring to the 2020 presidential election, according to the New York Post.
“With our Country collapsing, with our Military disgraced, with our Borders nonexistent, when will the American people have had enough?”
Former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon has said he will not respond to a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the incursion, prompting a hardball response from two members of the panel.
“Though the Select Committee welcomes good-faith engagement with witnesses seeking to cooperate with our investigation, we will not allow any witness to defy a lawful subpoena or attempt to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider advancing a criminal contempt of Congress referral,” Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson a Mississippi Democrat, and Vice-Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, said in a statement, according to the Post.
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