Donald Trump requesting to block investigations about the insurrection

Donald Trump filed a lawsuit requesting to block the House of Representatives select committee investigating the 6 January insurrection from accessing a tranche of White House records held by the National Archives. He did this after lawyer Dana Remus, who has served as White House counsel for U.S. President Joe Biden since January 2021, informed him that present president Joe Biden would not be honouring his request to use executive privilege, a legal doctrine that protects deliberations between and among the president and his advisers, to shield the records sought by the select committee.

On 9 November, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that the committee probing the events leading up to and surrounding the assault on Congress — the worst attack on the Capitol since 1814 — will be able to access telephone records, visitor logs and other documents generated during the Trump administration.

Presumably, Trump is somewhere very aware of how his position as an American citizen could be jeopardised, as he has on several occasions expressed riotous or dissenting opinions during the previous elections but also after the election results were known. He then repeatedly asked his supporters not to just let it happen, but to rise up and storm the Capitol, which his supporters eventually did. While they were doing so, he did not try for a single moment to calm people down, but rather kept his tone of voice indicating that they were doing the right thing and should not let themselves be done.

After White House Counsel Dana Remus had informed him that president Joe Biden would not be honouring his request to use executive privilege, a legal doctrine which protects deliberations between and among the president and his advisers, to shield the records sought by the select committee, Donald Trump got on his horse, abusing the office of the presidency and accusing them of failing to recognise and accomplish what he was entitled to and what the people had voted for him to do by opposing his appointment as well as his defence.

Jennifer Rene Psaki, American political advisor serving as the 34th and current White House press secretary.

According to the White House press secretary Jen Psaki,

“The former president’s actions represented a unique and existential threat to our democracy that we don’t feel can be swept under the rug, and as President Biden determined … the constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield information.”

It is not at all appropriate to give a president all the power and to allow him the people to rabble against other politicians in the country or nation, and certainly not to oppose a democratic electoral process.

Under precedents set by prior Supreme Court rulings, that decision to invoke executive privilege over the documents, should be “accorded greater weight” than Mr Trump’s wishes.

Ms Psaki said

“Plaintiff does not acknowledge the deference owed to the incumbent president’s judgment. His position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power ‘exists in perpetuity’.”

Trump needs to realise that his political or sovereign immunity no longer exists as he is no longer a president and is not part of the sitting heads of government.

She continues:

“But presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not president. He retains the right to assert that his records are privileged, but the incumbent president ‘is not constitutionally obliged to honour’ that assertion.”

Later she also added that Mr Biden’s decision not to use the privilege

“is consistent with historical practice and his constitutional power”.

The judge also rejected an argument made by Mr Trump’s lawyers which would have had the court review each document requested by the committee to determine if it should be shielded under the former president’s privilege claim, describing the proposal as using the judicial branch as “a tiebreaker” between him and Mr Biden.

“The court … is not best situated to determine executive branch interests, and declines to intrude upon the executive function in this manner. It must presume that the incumbent is best suited to make those decisions on behalf of the executive branch,”

she wrote.

“The court therefore holds that Plaintiff’s assertion of privilege is outweighed by President Biden’s decision not to uphold the privilege, and the court will not second guess that decision by undertaking a document-by-document review that would require it to engage in a function reserved squarely for the executive”.

Additionally, Judge Chutkan rejected arguments from Mr Trump’s attorneys which challenged the constitutionality of the Presidential Records Act — the 1978 law which governs the handling of White House official records of Presidents and Vice Presidents created or received after January 20, 1981, and mandating the preservation of all presidential record — and asked the court to block the committee’s request because it was overly broad and lacked a valid legislative purpose.

“The court has no difficulty discerning multiple subjects on which legislation ‘could be had’ from the select committee’s requests,”

she wrote, offering examples such as

“enacting or amending criminal laws to deter and punish violent conduct targeted at the institutions of democracy…imposing structural reforms on executive branch agencies to prevent their abuse for antidemocratic ends, amending the Electoral Count Act, and reallocating resources and modifying processes for intelligence sharing by federal agencies charged with detecting, and interdicting, foreign and domestic threats to the security and integrity of our electoral processes” as “examples of potential reforms” that Congress might find to be “necessary or appropriate to securing democratic processes, deterring violent extremism, protecting fair elections, and ensuring the peaceful transition of power” as a result of the committee’s work.

It is too important for American history to leave those documents hidden. The presidential records which are requested from the National Archives are critical for understanding the terrible events of 6 January and should shed a light on what really happened and who was or was not in charge of the event.

The decisive ruling on the former president’s lawsuit, can only give the Americans the feeling the state is working in their interest and is even willing to investigate the works of their presidents. For the public, it is good to know that the executive branch is willing to provide Congress with testimony and information when it is in the public interest.

Bennie Thompson, said

“This decision affirms the importance of the select committee’s work to get answers for the American people, recommend changes to the law to strengthen our democracy, and help ensure nothing like the attack of 6 January ever happens again.”

We can see that Mr Trump continues to peddle all kinds of nonsense and keeps throwing untruths on the net, which should make more Americans realise by now that this ‘gentleman’ is an untrustworthy person and a general danger to democracy in their nation.

Unless Judge Chutkan or the DC Circuit intervenes by blocking her ruling from going into effect, US archivist David Ferriero will begin turning documents over to the committee on 12 November.

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Preceding

United States of America once more showing how it wants to Distort Historical Facts and Truth

Manipulated content on social media

Who can tackle Donald Trump

In denial, Donald Trump continues to insist that nothing serious is at hand and everything is in control

A president daring to use the Bible for underlining his hate speech

The Hero of the greatest …. failures

Hollowness of democracy

2020 in view #1 The 45th president of the U.S.A.

2020 in view #2 The 45th president of the U.S.A. not willing to go

Stress-test for democracy #1 Storming of the Capitol in Washington

Stress-test for democracy #2 A coup d’etat with bloodshed

The death knell of an Empire

 

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Additional reading

1. Darkest just before dawn
2. Fearmongering succeeded and got the bugaboo a victory
3. Incidents of hate have become commonplace in the U.S.A. anno 2017
4. Christian fundamentalists feeding Into the Toxic Partisanship and driving countries into the Dark Ages… #1
5. Christian fundamentalists feeding Into the Toxic Partisanship and driving countries into the Dark Ages… #2
6. Voted against their system
7. Russian involvement in US elections
8. Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #1 Abrahamic religions
9. Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #2 War on God’s Plan, Name and title
10. Dear Mr. President – A Response to the “Shithole Countries” Comment
11. Trump brand of migrant demonization #1
12. Jews the next scapegoat for Donald Trump
13. The American clouds of Anti-Semitism
14. Trump’s rhetoric is infusing a culture of Anti-Semitism
15. Shall the American again being put to the test
16. Yup
17. The Weight of History
18. He Becomes a Fool Through His Endless Desire
19. The one that exploded the great American story that lay beneath it
20. Trump has been buffetted by accusations of misconduct
21. What Steve Bannon really wants
22. The Trump clan declares itself a Kennedy-like dynasty
23. So-called own sacred values under threat
24. U.S.A. Investment in a demagogue
25. Dear Mr. President
26. Trump Dragging the Jews and Israel into the scrum, using both as one more weapon in his racist rants.
27. Deal of the century or roadmap to apartheid?
28. Facts: Why they matter and how to check them
29. Evangelicals: For The Love Of Trump
30. Evangelicals & Seduction
31. Death to the GOP! Or not.
32. Trump going over the top bringing a blasphemous act
33. Trump is proven wrong by the judge

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