Wednesday, November 10, 2021

He'll go all the way

And he'll expect the Supreme Court to rule in his favor. Maybe he shouldn't have bad-mouthed them.
A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump’s effort to block Jan. 6 investigators from accessing White House records related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, determining that he has no authority to overrule President Joe Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege and release the materials to Congress.

“Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in her ruling.

Trump immediately appealed the decision.

[...]

The documents Trump is seeking to block from investigators include files drawn from former chief of staff Mark Meadows, adviser Stephen Miller and White House deputy counsel Patrick Philbin, as well as call and visitor logs.

[...]

Trump sued the Jan. 6 committee and the National Archives, saying that as a former president, he still has the right to assert executive privilege over the records — even if Biden disagreed. That power, Trump argued, is rooted in a Richard M. Nixon-era Supreme Court ruling that found former presidents retain a “residual” interest in the confidentiality of their own White House records.

  Politico
As I've said before, even if there are communications he's allowed to block, there's no way call and visitor logs can be considered privileged.
Chutkan began her ruling with a recitation of Trump’s months-long effort to sow distrust in the election results, as well as his attempt to call supporters to Washington to pressure lawmakers to refuse to certify his defeat to Joe Biden.

[...]

Chutkan said the Nixon precedent fails to help Trump’s case. In that instance, the current president — the only sitting “executive” — had not weighed in on Nixon’s effort to shield his records. In this case, Biden had already agreed to provide the documents to the Jan. 6 committee, waiving confidentiality concerns as a result of the “unprecedented” nature of the attack on Congress.

“At bottom, this is a dispute between a former and incumbent President. And the Supreme Court has already made clear that in such circumstances, the incumbent’s view is accorded greater weight, Chutkan wrote, citing the Nixon-era ruling.

Chutkan also rejected Trump’s proposal that she review every document on a case-by-case basis to determine whether it should be withheld from Jan. 6 investigators.

“The court … is not best situated to determine executive branch interests, and declines to intrude upon the executive function in this manner,” Chutkan wrote. “It must presume that the incumbent is best suited to make those decisions on behalf of the executive branch.”

[...]

There was one modest victory for Trump in the ruling: Chutkan agreed with Justice Department lawyers that some of the records sought by the committee — like polling data — would not be considered “presidential records” and, therefore, shouldn’t be produced by the National Archives. The judge added that “personal papers or communications” also fall within that category. The committee could try to subpoena those sorts of records directly from Trump, but thus far has not taken that step.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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