Wednesday, January 19, 2022

SCOTUS Denies Trump's Request To Block Records Release To January 6 Committee

 

Here we go:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected former president Donald Trump’s request to block release of some of his White House records to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The order turned aside Trump’s request to block the records release while the case continues through the courts. It means there is no legal obstacle to release of the materials from the National Archives.

The order, with only Justice Clarence Thomas noting his dissent, did not provide reasoning for rejecting the former president’s application. Nor did Thomas explain why he would have granted the request. Neither is uncommon when the court is addressing an emergency request.

Lawyers for Trump had asked the justices to put on hold a unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which rejected his assertions of executive privilege and his request to keep secret roughly 800 pages of his papers. President Biden determined the subpoenaed material could be released to the select committee investigating the attack.  [snip]

Every lower court judge that has heard the issue agreed that the committee had a right to the records, and that Biden, as the sitting president, was the proper person to judge whether they are protected by executive privilege.

Of course, Thomas would be the holdout, given his wife's support of the January 6 insurrectionists

It's been a rough few days on the legal front for the the Malignant Loser, and this critical SCOTUS decision is going to trigger him bigly thanks to the "ingratitude" of "his" justices.  Good.