Biden administration defends its decision not to assert executive privilege over

The House select committee argues that it desperately needs the papers for its sprawling probe into the deadly insurrection, and that Trump hasn’t shown how he would be harmed enough to keep the records from being released. And the Biden administration is defending its decision that White House records from January 6 shouldn’t be protected by executive privilege. Trump has disagreed, and his insistence on secrecy prompted him to sue in October.

The case, a major one on presidential authority and executive privilege as well House investigations, raises unsettled questions about the power of a former president to control information from his White House, even when the current administration and Congress support transparency for the records.

“Allowing a former President to override the decisions of an incumbent President would be an extraordinary intrusion into the latter’s ability to discharge his constitutional responsibilities,” lawyers from the Justice Department wrote in the filing on Thursday. They represent the National Archives, which currently possesses the Trump-era White House documents.

With congressional elections in November 2022 and the possibility Democrats will lose control of the House, the select committee argued time is of the essence.

“The Select Committee’s authorization will expire on January 3, 2023, and each passing day handicaps the Select Committee’s investigation, forcing it to proceed without the benefit of documents to which it is entitled,” lawyers for the House wrote on Thursday.

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Their responses come a week after Trump asked the justices to look at the case, and to keep the records secret while the case is before the court. And both the House and the administration now repeatedly hint at the possibility that the House committee believes it has more to uncover about federal officials’ discussions to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win — even possible malfeasance by top officials.

“Far from ‘fishing,’ or looking to the former President and his advisors as a ‘case study,'” DOJ writes, using Trump’s team’s words against him, “the Committee is investigating events involving [Trump] and other White House officials that have an identifiable factual foundation and relate to a specific, unprecedented attack on the Capitol. That investigation unquestionably serves legitimate legislative purposes. And contrary to [Trump]’s contentions, those legislative purposes are sufficient to support the Committee’s request even if some Members [of Congress] also believe that the investigation may ‘disclose crime or wrongdoing.'”

The Justice Department also argues that the White House’s recent negotiations with the House to withdraw or defer requests for some national security records show the committee has narrowed some of its requests. Previously, both the White House and the House have faced criticism for Biden’s willingness to disclose records from the West Wing, and about the large amount of material the committee is pursuing.

Trump “does not argue that even a single page of those records is beyond the scope of the…

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