Supreme Court Rejects Trump’s Attempts To Withhold January 6th Materials
With only Justice Thomas registering dissent, the Supreme Court ruled that the National Archives could release materials the January 6th committee requested on former President Trump and that executive privilege did not apply.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected former president Donald Trump’s request to block the release of some of his White House records to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The order turned aside Trump’s request to block the records’ release while the case regarding his assertion of executive privilege continues through the courts. It means there is no legal obstacle to release of the materials from the National Archives — which President Biden has approved — and Trump’s lawyers have argued that would make the case moot.
White House spokesman Michael Gwin said the court’s ruling was an “important step forward” in the probe.
“The former President subverted the constitution in an attempt to overturn a lawful and fair election,” Gwin said in a statement Wednesday night. “His actions represented a unique and existential threat to our democracy, and President Biden has been clear that these events require a full investigation to ensure that what we saw on January 6th can never happen again.”
It was a major victory for the House select committee, which has been aggressive in going after Trump’s records, issuing subpoenas to his allies and focusing on the president’s actions during the insurrection.
“The Supreme Court’s action tonight is a victory for the rule of law and American democracy,” committee chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said in a joint statement. “The Select Committee has already begun to receive records that the former President had hoped to keep hidden. … Our work goes forward to uncover all the facts about the violence of January 6th and its causes.”
The records will be released to the committee, and not the public.
Jan. 6 panel grapples with how to secure testimony from lawmakers, Pence
The Supreme Court’s order, with only Justice Clarence Thomas noting dissent, did not provide detailed reasoning for rejecting the former president’s application. Nor did Thomas explain why he would have granted the request. Neither is uncommon when the court is addressing an emergency motion.
But it was another defeat for Trump at the Supreme Court, where he chose a third of the sitting justices. The former president said in the past he is disappointed in the high court and that some of the justices lack “guts.”
The court turned aside requests from Trump and his supporters to get involved in challenges to the 2020 election results. It ruled against his claims that the presidency protected him from investigation and rejected his efforts to block release of his financial records.
One wonders of Steve Bannon’s lawyers are telling him to rethink taking his case to court on executive privilege grounds.Report
No. He’s trying to string the process out until the midterms knowing full well that a GOP house will let him off the hook scott free.Report
except he’s being prosecuted by the DoJ, who last time I checked don’t care about the mid-terms. The criminal referral is already in the hand of DoJ and the Courts. Sure, the House benefits from a ruling that he’s in contempt, but they aren’t running the game anymore.Report
Hmm good point.Report
Except except if the committee drops the proceedings, Bannon’s lawyer will probably be able to get a judge to dismiss the contempt charge as moot, no?Report
His trial starts 18 July. He may still be in the appeals phase of his sentence by next January, but we should know whether he’s convicted or not.Report
With only Thomas dissenting….Huh, that name rings a bell.
Oh yeah…
Clarence Thomas, husband of GINNI THOMAS:
Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes pointed to a letter signed by Ginni Thomas along with many other fringe conservatives like the Family Research Council, the chair of the Tea Party Patriots Fund and the president of the Club for Growth. The letter speaks out against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who serve on the Jan. 6 committee which bothers Republicans who believe the GOP should be unified in protecting those who participated in a “coup,” as three retired U.S. Army generals characterized it.
It adds to questions about Mrs. Thomas that surfaced after the attack at the U.S. Capitol. On Jan. 6, she was supporting the violence as it unfolded on her social media. When screen captures were being circulated, she promptly deleted her Facebook account, as Law and Crime observed at the time.Report
#MeToo.
I bet you still believe the hearings that Clarence Thomas was a sexual harrasser.
Look at a picture of Ginni sometime, and you can see who Mr. Thomas prefers.
(House boy votes the way he’s told, so he can keep his white wife).
[Sad to say, he’s still not as bad as Sotomayor, whose tendency to spout made-up nonsense is hilarious. I wish I could say “she’s just spouting the party line.” But no, she’s just that dumb.]Report
Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines
The draft executive order shows that the weeks between Election Day and the Capitol attack could have been even more chaotic than they were. It credulously cites conspiracy theories about election fraud in Georgia and Michigan, as well as debunked notions about Dominion voting machines.
The order empowers the defense secretary to “seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention under” a U.S. law that relates to preservation of election records. It also cites a lawsuit filed in 2017 against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/21/read-the-never-issued-trump-order-that-would-have-seized-voting-machines-527572
This is who still holds the support of 90% of the Republican voting base. This is what they want.Report
Just don’t call it a coup.Report