White House rejects Trump’s claim of executive privilege
The Democratic White House has rejected former Republican US President Donald Trump’s claims of executive privilege over documents requested by the congressional committee investigating the January 6 assault on the US Capitol by hundreds of Trump’s supporters who were protesting against the controversial victory of Joe Biden, the current American president.
White House counsel Dana Remus on Monday directed the National Archives to turn over the Trump-era documents to the committee and wrote that Biden consulted with the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and decided that Trump’s privilege assertion “is not justified,” the Washington-based The Hill newspaper reported.
“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 the documents provided to the White House on September 16, 2021, and September 23, 2021,” Remus wrote in a letter to National Archivist David Ferriero on Monday, indicating Trump has made two more such assertions.
“Accordingly, President Biden does not uphold the former President’s assertion of privilege,” Remus wrote.
The letter comes after Trump filed a federal lawsuit against the January 6 select committee in an attempt to block the panel from obtaining his administration's records from the US National Archives. The committee has requested for White House call logs, schedules and other documents on January 6.
Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6 in the hope of preventing lawmakers from certifying Biden's victory, thus overturning the outcome of the 2020 presidential election but to no avail.
Trump, who believes that the election was rigged by the US establishment in favor of Biden, has said that the 2020 presidential election was “the greatest Election Hoax in history.”
For months, Trump has floated the idea of a 2024 rematch against Biden. But in recent weeks, he has signaled strongly that he may be more likely to run again than not, according to a recent report.
Trump’s statements have intensified a collective headache for other would-be Republican presidential contenders who have already started laying the groundwork for their own primary campaigns, according to the report.
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