Biden Jabs Trump by Ordering Contested Records Be Released to Jan. 6 Committee
The Biden administration wants to give the Democratic-dominated panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion whatever it desires.
White House counsel Dana Remus has written to the National Archives telling it to supply the panel with White House visitor logs it is seeking from the Trump administration and to be snappy about it, according to The New York Times.
The Donald Trump White House had acted in 2017 to keep all visitor logs private, citing “the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually,” the report said.
But President Joe Biden said that’s no longer necessary, Remus wrote.
“The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records,” the letter to the National Archives said, according to a copy published by Axios.
“The records in question are entries in visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on January 6, 2021,” the letter said.
Remus said that “Congress has a compelling need” to peruse the logs.
In a jab directed at the former president, Remus wrote that “constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”
The letter claimed that “in light of the urgency” of the panel’s efforts, the National Archives should provide the requested material within 15 days.
In the letter, Remus said the Jan. 6 panel — which was hand-picked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and includes only two Republicans, both fiercely anti-Trump — will “treat entries associated with appointments designated as national-security sensitive or otherwise-highly sensitive as confidential.”
The letter said birthdates and Social Security numbers of White House visitors will be redacted in the version given to the panel.
Biden and former President Barack Obama have made visitor logs public.
No immediate reaction was forthcoming from Trump, who has steadfastly denounced the Jan. 6 panel.
NEW!
President Donald J. Trump
“The Unselect Committee and Nancy Pelosi are completely out of control, harassing innocent people, seizing private phone and bank records, and using the Capitol Police to spy on members of Congress. The RINOs, who were recently given support… pic.twitter.com/9a50QaGPHL
— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) February 11, 2022
As noted by the Times, this is not the first time Biden has disregarded Trump’s claim of executive privilege in shipping documents to the committee.
The panel is busy planning hearings designed to get its message across, NBC News reported Tuesday.
Committee member and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California said the hearings will be crafted to “catch people’s attention and hold people’s attention.”
“They’re preparing to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end stretched out over two to three weeks, complete with surprises and plot twists,” NBC News reported.
“We’re learning about the financing of this debacle,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said. “We’re learning about the role that propaganda and incitement played on social media. We’re learning about coordination among the domestic violent extremists. And we’re starting to learn about coordination between Trump’s political entourage and insurrectionary elements.
“There are a lot of different dimensions to this seditious attack on democracy. We want to shine a light on all of it.”
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