The White House said that US President Joe Biden asked the National Archives Administration to send records of White House visitors to the House Committee charged with investigating the events of the storming of Congress in January 2021, thus refusing the nature of the "executive privilege" (right of withholding) granted by his predecessor Donald Trump on these documents.
Visitor records show "appointments given to persons checked into the White House complex, including January 6, 2021" (the day of Congressional storming), according to a letter from White House counselor Dana Remus to Director of the National Archives David Ferrero. .
The New York Times reported that Biden had ordered the National Archives to grant congressional investigators access to the White House visitor records;
Given the urgency of their work investigating the siege of Trump supporters - who reject the results of the 2020 presidential election - the Capitol building, he ordered the records to be turned over within 15 days.
Trump had said while he was still president that the White House visitor's book on the day his supporters stormed the Capitol fell within executive privilege.
This legal term gives the President of the United States the power to withhold certain classified documents in the interest of the country, but Biden did not agree with this view.
Estimation of interest
And the counselor's letter in the White House stated that "the President has determined that asserting executive privilege is not in the interests of the United States, and therefore there is no justification in relation to these records and parts of the records," and the same spokeswoman added that the Biden administration "voluntarily discloses visitor records." on a monthly basis,” with some limited exceptions, as did the administration of former President Barack Obama.
In her letter to the National Archives Department, Chancellor Dana Remus said, "Constitutional protections for executive privileges should not be used to withhold from Congress or public opinion information that reflects a clear effort to undermine the Constitution itself."
The special committee formed by Congress to investigate the incidents of the storming of the legislative establishment wants to obtain visitor records, as part of its efforts to shed light on the role played by Trump and his aides in that bloody storming, which resulted in the killing of 5 people and the wounding of more than 100 police personnel.
The aim of storming Congress was to obstruct the ratification session of the presidential election results, in which Trump was defeated by his rival Biden. lawsuits filed.
Trump and the Committee
Trump and his narrow circle are also engaged in a battle of attrition measures with the parliamentary committee investigating the events of the storming of Congress, and this committee formed by the House of Representatives is racing against time to publish the results of its work before the midterm elections next fall, in which the Republicans can regain control of the House of Representatives with a majority. democracy, so they can finish the investigation.
Last year, Biden also rejected Trump's attempt to prevent the House of Representatives inquiry from accessing sets of documents related to his time in the White House, and federal courts rejected a Trump lawsuit to withhold the records.
It is noteworthy that the Parliamentary Investigation Committee conducted a hearing until 81 o'clock, in which some of Trump's top aides were summoned during his presidency, and the committee heard more than 560 witnesses.