US President Joe Biden rejects his predecessor Donald Trump's assertion of executive privilege to withhold White House visitor logs from the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, his counsel said in a letter to the Archivist of the United States
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th February, 2022) US President Joe Biden rejects his predecessor Donald Trump's assertion of executive privilege to withhold White House visitor logs from the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, his counsel said in a letter to the Archivist of the United States.
"The President 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 these records and portions of records. The records in question are entries in visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on January 6, 2021," the letter, dated Tuesday, said. "(P)reserving the confidentiality of this type of record generally is not necessary to protect long-term institutional interests of the Executive Branch."
In the letter, White House Counsel Dana Remus added that the main portion of the entries over which Trump has asserted executive privilege would be publicly released under current policy.
Biden therefore instructs the archivist to hand the documents over to the panel committee within 15 days after notifying Trump, the letter said.
Executive privilege grants the US President or other officials from the executive branch the power to legally block requests to provide information from legislative or judicial branches.
The documents in question have been requested by the House Select Committee to investigate the events in the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The committee waged a legal battle to gain access to records despite the objections of Trump's lawyers, who claim they must remain confidential due to executive privilege. The National Archives has identified approximately 1,600 pages of documents as relevant to the probe, while Trump is seeking to prevent the investigators from accessing about 750 of them.
On January 6, 2021, a large group of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building to protest lawmakers certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, after the former president claimed the results were invalid due to alleged voter fraud.
