News / Politics

Ex-White House, DOJ officials urge Supreme Court to reject Trump’s effort to hamper Jan. 6 investigation

Wednesday, 29 December 2021 10:24 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 29 December 2021 10:24 PM ]

A group of former White House and top Justice Department lawyers who served under Republican presidents have demanded the Supreme Court to reject former US President Donald Trump’s efforts to stymie the House committee’s probe around the Jan. 6 incidents.

“Congress is now investigating those events and determining how to prevent unsuccessful candidates from attempting to undermine our democracy in the future,” they wrote in an amicus brief on Wednesday.

“Amici believe that the documents at issue should be turned over given, among other things, the importance of the House investigation into the January 6th attack and the current president’s reasonable determination that executive privilege should not be asserted in this case,” they added.

Biden, Trump fight over Jan. 6 protest entering new stage

US President Joe Biden is taking on former President Donald Trump for a second time in his attempt to block documents related to the Jan. 6 insurrection by his supporters at the Capitol Hill.

This comes after the legal team of the former president pleaded last month with a federal court to block the Jan. 6 select committee's access to the records of his administration, claiming that there is "no evidence of wrongdoing."

"The Committee’s breathless innuendo and conjecture cannot sustain the broad scope of their request when there is no evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump and those in the White House," Trump's lawyers wrote a court filing.

The committee, however, immediately rejected Trump’s claim, calling the former president's executive privilege claims "deeply flawed."

"The Select Committee’s request is squarely within its jurisdiction and driven by a clear legislative purpose: to understand the facts and causes surrounding the January 6 attack to develop legislation and other measures that will protect our Nation from a similar assault in the future," the committee's lawyers said in a court filing last month. "The Select Committee has reasonably concluded that it needs the documents of the then-President who helped foment the breakdown in the rule of law."

Since Jan. 6, Democrats have been arguing that the protest was an insurrection based on disinformation spread by the former president, who alleges that he is the true victor of the 2020 presidential election and not Biden.

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