White House, Jan. 6 committee agreed to protect certain documents

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WASHINGTON (AP)-The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurgency at the Capitol has agreed to defer its request for hundreds of pages of notes from the Trump administration, which followed Biden White’s wishes. House.

The postponement was in response to Biden White House concerns that the release of all Trump administration documents requested by the committee could compromise national security and executive privilege.

President Joe Biden has repeatedly denied former President Donald Trump’s efforts to cite executive privilege to block the release of documents surrounding that day. But Biden’s White House is still working with the committee to protect certain documents from being returned.

Trump is appealing to the Supreme Court to try to prevent the National Archives and Records Administration, which maintains custody of documents from his tenure, from providing them to the committee.

The agreement to remove some Trump -era records from the committee was recalled in a Dec. 16 letter from the White House attorney’s office. It typically maintains records that do not involve events on Jan. 6 but are covered by the committee’s extensive request for documents from the Trump White House about events that day.

Dozens of pages created on Jan. 6 had nothing to do with the attack on the Capitol. Other documents involve sensitive preparations and deliberations by the National Security Council. Biden officials are concerned that if those pages are handed over to Congress, that will set a difficult precedent for the executive branch, no matter who the president is.

The other documents were highly classified and the White House asked Congress to work with the federal agencies that created them to discuss their release.

“The documents by which the Select Committee has agreed to withdraw or postpone its request appear to have nothing to do with the White House’s preparations for or responding to the events of Jan. 6, or in efforts to withdraw the election or otherwise it will hinder the peaceful transfer of power, ”White House deputy counsel Jonathan Su wrote in one of two letters to the committee obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Su wrote that for the committee, withholding the documents “should not compromise its ability to complete its critical investigation quickly.”

Over the past few months the National Archives has been sending tranches of documents to the White House and to lawyers for Trump to determine if they contain any privileged information. Trump raised both widespread opposition to the release of the documents as well as particular concerns about specific documents.

The National Archives said the records Trump wanted to block include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts, handwritten notes “about the events of Jan. 6” from the files of the former chief of staff who Mark Meadows, and “a draft Executive Order on the subject of electoral integrity.”

Biden has repeatedly denied Trump’s claim of executive privilege over those documents, including a letter sent Dec. 23 about approximately 20 pages of documents.

“The President has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interest of the United States, and is therefore unreasonable,” White House counsel Dana Remus reiterated in the latest letter.

Trump came to the courts to block document releases. A federal appeals court ruled this month against Trump, and he has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, though the high court has not yet decided whether to answer the case.

Judge Patricia Millett, who wrote for the court’s opinion on Dec. 9, said Congress had a “uniquely significant interest” in studying the events of Jan. 6 and Biden made the “careful reasoning” that determination that the documents are in the public interest and the executive privilege should therefore not be used. Trump also failed to show any damage that would occur from the release of the wanted records, Millett wrote.

“In the record before us, former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and concessions made between the Political Branches in these documents,” he said. stated the opinion.

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