The President of the United States of America, Joe Biden has again rejected Trump’s executive privilege claims by ordering the White House visitor logs to be released to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.
National Archives data, including records that Trump had tried to keep private, were sought by the committee earlier. In the records submitted to Congress are visitor logs that detail who was allowed into the White House on the day of the insurrection, AP News reported.
According to a letter sent Monday to the National Archives, White House counsel Dana Remus said Biden had taken into consideration Trump’s argument that because he was president at the time of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the records should remain private.
Surprisingly, Remus deemed that “not in the best interest of the United States.”
In addition, she noted that the Biden administration “voluntarily discloses such visitor logs on a monthly basis,” and that under the current policy, the majority of the entries regarding which Trump asserted his claim would be made public.
A request for comment on the decision was not immediately answered by a Trump spokesman.
Under the law, a sitting president and his staff are required to preserve their records at the National Archives, and outgoing presidents are required to hand over their records at the time of leaving office.
In a dispute that was decided by the Supreme Court, Trump attempted to withhold White House documents from the House committee.
Despite Biden’s previous invocation of executive privilege, the president will not invoke it unless this becomes absolutely necessary.
Meanwhile, many other information requests from the committee have been waived by Biden.
But, in addition to reviewing the documents, the committee is obtaining the testimony of witnesses, including some who are uncooperative.
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As part of its investigation, the committee is concentrating on Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, when he waited hours before telling his supporters to stop the violence and leave the Capitol.
Among the unanswered questions is how closely the rally organizers coordinated with White House officials.
Investigators also want to know how the rally was organized and financed the morning of the riot when Trump told supporters to “fight like hell.”
Also, investigators are trying to learn what 15 boxes of records that the National Archives recovered from Trump at his Florida resort contained from communications between the agency and Trump’s aides.
According to the House committee’s review of White House call logs, neither Trump’s calls as he watched the violence unfold on Jan. 6 nor calls made directly to the president are listed.
The investigators have difficulty determining what Trump was doing at the White House during the time that supporters beat police, broke into the Capitol, and disrupted the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
A number of explanations for the omission of conversations between Trump and multiple Republican lawmakers on Jan. 6 are possible to be found in the records.
Additionally, records continue to be received from the National Archives and other sources, which could provide more information later on.
