Former president Donald Trump plans to file lawsuits to block the release of records from his administration related to the Capitol insurrection that are being sought by a House select committee.
“Trump’s moves to try to resist the select committee, informed by a source familiar with his planning, are likely to lead to constitutional clashes in court that would test the power of Congress’s oversight authority over the executive branch,” the Guardian reported Wednesday.
In recent weeks, Trump has openly stated his intention to assert “executive privilege” in trying to block release of the records requested by the House panel investigating the insurrection. But the Guardian reports that “the sharpening contours of Trump’s intention to stonewall the select committee mark a new turning point.”
“The plan to prevent House select committee investigators from receiving Trump White House records revolves around exploiting the procedure by which the National Archives allows both the Biden administration and Trump to review materials for executive privilege claims,” the Guardian reports.
Trump has 30 days to review the records produced by the National Archives in response to the committee’s requests — which have been arriving “hundreds of thousands of pages at a time on a rolling basis” since Aug. 31 — and decide whether to assert executive privilege. But the Biden administration has final authority over whether to release the records — regardless of Trump’s position — after another 60 days.
“The former president, however, can then file lawsuits to block their release – a legal strategy that Trump and his advisers are preparing to pursue insofar as it could tie up the records in court for months and stymie evidence-gathering by the select committee,” the Guardian reports.
The former president also expects top aides — including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel – to defy the select committee, the report states.
The story notes that while Trump is not guaranteed to win court cases asserting executive privelege, his plan could “hamper” the investigation and “delay” the committee’s report until after the midterm elections.