Second, the Biden administration, including the quasi-independent National Archives and Records Administration and other federal agencies, which together have control of the official government documents and correspondence responsive to the committee’s requests: The Biden White House will determine whether to exercise the executive branch’s constitutional authority to assert executive privilege and withhold information or whether to waive any potential privilege claim. Questions remain, however, about whether any subpoena recipient has a valid defense to that authority-such as executive privilege-and, perhaps more importantly, whether the committee has any mechanism for enforcing its authority if faced with recalcitrance. But, as a practical matter, the committee may never receive it.įour distinct groups, each with a unique set of legal obligations and authorities, are now caught up in the question whether the committee will receive the information and testimony it seeks.įirst, the committee itself, which is exercising Congress’s constitutional power of inquiry -including the power to subpoena documents and testimony -to conduct its investigation: To date, everyone appears to agree that the committee’s subpoenas are within that investigative authority. As for the bottom line, it seems quite likely that the committee is correct that, as a legal matter, it is entitled to most of the information and testimony it seeks.
Nor is it clear whether Trump and his team will ultimately follow through on his threats or what choices each individual subject to the committee’s inquiry will make about his conflicting duties to the former president, the current president, and the congressional inquiry. The various issues raised by the commission’s subpoenas and other requests for information are complex, and largely unanswered by the courts. The committee intends to be aggressive and seek any and all information, notwithstanding any potential privilege issues the Biden administration will pose few, if any obstacles, to the committee’s information demands and the Trump team will exhaust every avenue to fight the release of information. The contours of the looming conflict are becoming clear. 27 that a “good number” of additional subpoenas are forthcoming. Trump responded with a familiar pledge to “fight the Subpoenas on Executive Privilege and other grounds” not for his own sake but for the “good of our Country.” And soon thereafter, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, suggested the Biden administration would comply fully with the information requests from the committee and that President Biden had “already concluded that it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege.” Her statements led to reports that Biden would waive all available claims of privilege before the committee, but the White House later clarified that she was referring only to past cases and that future cases would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. 23- issuing subpoenas to four close confidants of Trump that demand testimony and personal documents about Trump’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6 attack turned up the heat on the controversy on Sept. The House select committee investigating the Jan. To what extent a former president can rely on executive privilege to prevent Congress from gaining access to information-a question that has rarely arisen and that has never been resolved-is now front and center. And the Biden administration is in possession of the information.
Former President Trump has vowed repeatedly to fight those information requests utilizing one of his favorite constitutional weapons while in office, executive privilege.
6 attack on the Capitol and the Trump White House’s efforts to subvert the results of the November 2020 election.
Congress is seeking access to information regarding the Jan. For several weeks now, a constitutional conflict has been simmering on Capitol Hill.
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