President Joe Biden about to board Air Force One on Wednesday, June 16, 2021. (photo: Martial Trezzini/AFP/Getty Images) 11 October 21
Bess Levin Vanity Fair
The new president laughs in the face of the old president’s “executive privilege.”
As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Donald Trump really, really doesn’t want people to find out what exactly he was up to on January 6, 2021, probably because it makes him look really, really bad. We know he feels this way because he’s responded to the House select committee’s investigation into the events of the day like a caged feral pigeon—frantically flapping his wings, shitting everywhere; because his lawyer has instructed at least four of his lackeys to obstruct justice; and because he’s insisted that any and all documents detailing what he was doing before, during, and after the Capitol attack must remain under lock and key. In a letter sent to the National Archives on Friday, Trump wrote that the records sought by the committee contain information shielded by “executive and other privileges, including but not limited to the presidential communications, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges,” adding that he would assert the same privilege in the case of any future requests.
Only, as Trump may or may not know, he’s no longer president, and therefore he has no executive privilege to assert. Instead, there’s a new president in the White House, and that guy? Says the documents are going to Congress!
Per The Washington Post:
President [Joe] Biden rejected former president Donald Trump’s request to block documents from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the White House said on Friday, likely setting up a legal and political battle. Trump has claimed executive privilege in seeking to evade the committee’s demands for details about Trump and his aides’ activities during the Jan. 6 attack. But in the letter to the National Archives and Records Administration, the White House said Biden “determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States.”
At a White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden decision reflected the gravity of the attack. “The president’s dedicated to ensuring that something like that could never happen again, which is why the administration is cooperating with ongoing investigations,” Psaki said. “The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not warranted for the first set of documents from the Trump White House that have been provided to us by the National Archives.”
Biden’s decision came after Trump told four former advisers, according to Politico, not to comply with congressional subpoenas, and former White House strategist Stephen Bannon told the committee he won’t be responding to its requests for documents. According to the Post, former chief of staff Mark Meadows and national security aide Kash Patel are said to be “engaging with the committee,” despite President Trump’s demands. “While Mr. Meadows and Mr. Patel are, so far, engaging with the Select Committee, Mr. Bannon has indicated that he will try to hide behind vague references to privileges of the former President,” the committee’s leaders said in a statement released Friday. The committee added that it is considering holding Bannon in criminal contempt. (For his part, Bannon knows a little something about running afoul of the law. In August 2020, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly scamming thousands of border-wall donors. He pleaded not guilty and, naturally, was pardoned by Trump before going to trial. Separately, in November 2020, Bannon was permanently kicked off of Twitter after suggesting Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.)
Biden’s decision triggers at least a 30-day window for Trump to challenge the call in court before the documents are released, which he no doubt will. On the Hill, members of the committee investigating the insurrection have pledged to take a hard line with anyone refusing to cooperate with the probe. “This is a matter of the utmost seriousness, and we need to consider the full panoply of enforcement sanctions available to us,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin. “And that means criminal contempt citations, civil contempt citations and the use of Congress’s own inherent contempt powers.”
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