Trump Asks SCOTUS To Block Jan 6 Committee Request From Acquiring White House Records

Donald Trump's legal team on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to block the Jan. 6 Committee’s request to obtain White House records citing executive privilege.

The request comes after a lower court rejected Trump’s executive privilege argument and after President Joe Biden rejected Trump's executive privilege requests over documents sought by the House committee.

“The disagreement between an incumbent president and his predecessor from a rival political party is both novel and highlights the importance of executive privilege and the ability of presidents and their advisers to reliably make and receive full and frank advice, without concern that communications will be publicly released to meet a political objective,” Trump’s lawyers told the court.

“The people being persecuted by the January 6th Unselect Committee should simply tell the truth, that they are angry about the RIGGED Presidential Election of 2020,” read a statement from Trump's website.

The committee has been tasked with investigating the events that led to attempts to overturn the election and the Capitol riots. The committee has issued a number of subpoenas, with one of them leading to the indictment of former Trump aide Steve Bannon.

"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," Biden’s White House Counsel Dana Remus wrote in a letter on Oct. 8 to David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States.

Remus cited the “unique and extraordinary circumstances” of the deadly riots on the Capitol in deciding not to assert executive privilege and allow the release of the records.

Judge Patricia Millett acknowledged the right to invoke executive privilege, but said that the power of executive privilege is not absolute, even for a sitting president.

Trump’s lawyers have argued that Trump has special authority to make decisions regarding the records of his administration.

“Both branches agree that there is a unique legislative need for these documents and that they are directly relevant to the committee’s inquiry into an attack on the legislative branch and its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power," Millett said.