Trump made – and lost – an overnight bid to block investigators on Jan. 6

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Chutkan heard arguments in the suit last week and vowed to rule quickly on Trump’s initial emergency request. But he seems inclined to deny it, questioning the legal basis for a former president to claim executive privilege on records when the sitting president and Congress disagree.

The National Archives indicated Trump sought to block at least 750 pages in an initial 1,500 excavated in response to the committee’s Jan. 6 request for records about the former president’s efforts to overthrow the election. Many of those papers were taken from the files of senior Trump aides such as Mark Meadows, Stephen Miller and Patrick Philbin. They also include call and visitor logs.

Trump’s lawyer, Jesse Binnall, released his second request Monday night, asking Chutkan to approve an “administrative stay” of his own decision before he even released it. That way, Binnall argued, Trump would have a chance to appeal his decision before the Archives starts delivering hundreds of pages to congressional investigators.

Binnall also warned Chutkan that if he does not rule on Trump’s first request on Wednesday, he will immediately go to the appellate court and ask it to enter. in Congress at 6 pm Friday.

“This case must be decided after thorough but speedy consideration in accordance with America’s judicial review process, both before this Court and on appeal, not by a race against the clock,” it wrote. by Binnall.

But the request puzzled legal experts, who said judges had no power to preemptively block decisions they had not yet issued. They noticed Chutkan was already acting on an urgent timeline to consider Trump’s initial request and that it was strange for the former president to threaten to go to the appellate court before seeing Chutkan’s decision.

Chutkan said, in his brief decision overnight, that he would consider Binnall’s request for stay after he released his decision, which he reiterated coming “quickly.” But he noted that federal rules only allow a stay “while an appeal is pending,” not before.

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