U.S. News
Biden orders Trump White House visitor logs turned over to Jan. 6 panel
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
- President Joe Biden has rejected former President Donald Trump’s executive privilege claims and allowed access to his White House visitor logs.
- Biden ordered the National Archives to hand the documents over to the Jan. 6 House committee.
- The documents will be turned over to the committee in 15 days “unless prohibited by court order.”
President Joe Biden has rejected Donald Trump’s claim of executive privilege over the former president’s White House visitor logs. Biden ordered the National Archives to turn the documents over to the House committee investigating the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
White House counsel Dana Remus sent a letter to U.S. archivist David Ferriero dated Tuesday for the documents to be turned over to the House panel in 15 days “unless prohibited by court order.”
The letter indicates that the White House believes Congress “has a compelling need in service of its legislative functions” for the documents to understand circumstances leading up to “the most serious attack on the operations of the Federal Government since the Civil War.”
“The President 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 these records and portions of records,” Remus wrote.
Remus also noted that the White House’s current policy is to release visitor logs for transparency, a practice that was stopped under the Trump administration.
“The majority of the entries over which the former President has asserted executive privilege would be publicly released under current policy,” Remus wrote.
The letter says that the documents Trump is seeking to block are White House visitor logs showing appointments of those who entered the White House complex, including logs from Jan. 6, 2021.
Ferriero also sent a letter to Trump notifying the former president of plans to submit the documents to the Jan. 6 committee.
Biden has previously rejected similar efforts by Trump to shield documents from the Jan. 6 panel. The former president may choose to seek court action to block the release of the documents to the committee.
However, the Supreme Court last month declined a request from Trump to block the release of other documents the Jan. 6 committee had requested.
On Jan. 21, the National Archives has already submitted the visitor logs in question to the White House for review. The White House was alerted to Trump’s privilege claims on Jan. 31, Remus wrote.
The Jan. 6 committee made a sweeping document request to the National Archives last year that included communications, calendars, schedules, movement logs, videos, photographs, visitor logs and telephone records.
The committee is also seeking witness testimony from individuals linked to the former president.
Source: The Hill
ox
February 19, 2022 at 10:28 am
Lying Corrupt Quid Pro KING Joe should be careful for what he wishes for. The first order of business for the next Republican president, is to reverse every one of Corrupt Quid Pro’s unconstitutional orders and mandates, and then declassify Corrupt Quid Pro and Hussein Obama’s stay in the W/H.
2004done
February 20, 2022 at 7:48 am
ox: I’ll file that under “the way transparency SHOULD work, but hasn’t, doesn’t, and won’t.”
Andrew Symmons
February 20, 2022 at 9:59 am
I agree
Rat Wrangler
February 19, 2022 at 10:47 am
Every document, email, and phone call made by elected officials should be released to the public unless it contains previously defined matters of security. This should include all visitor logs and the details of every secret meeting. All official phone calls should be recorded and transcribed, and all financial transactions, including stock purchases and sales, made by our elected officials should be logged and immediately made available to the public. Technically, these people are our employees, as they are all paid by tax dollars, and we have a right to know why they seem to be living beyond their means. The average Congressperson makes $174,000 annually, but many of them have millions of dollars in homes and properties. How did this come about? What other sources of income do they have, and do these other sources impact how they do their jobs?
2004done
February 20, 2022 at 11:18 pm
I would hope you wouldn’t vote to EXPAND government by a factor of AT LEAST THREE, not including verification of ALL transcriptions. To me, that is like asking Democrats to verify EVERY Election they won, nd overturn every election they lost. They are grinnin You are asking for History to be rewritten. While I MUST agree with your intentions, the practical application is asking for cheating by a lawless bunch of Never-Do-Wells, of BOTH main parties