Date: 2024-07-17 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021562
THE TRUMP SAGA
JANUARY 6TH
Trump lawyer lobs threats as National Archives prepares to send some documents to select committee
JANUARY 6TH
Trump lawyer lobs threats as National Archives prepares to send some documents to select committee
Donald Trump and Mark Meadows. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Original article: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1/19/2075521/-Jan-6-select-committee-is-on-the-brink-of-getting-first-few-Trump-White-House-documents
Burgess COMMENTARY
I get frustrated by the deliberate, slow and ponderous way in which the judicial system moves, but at the same time I do have some understanding of why it works in this manner. Hopefully in the course of time there will be a full accounting under the law of the appalling behavior of former President Trump and his enablers.
The great challenge is to maintain some of the protections that are built into the law and at the same time to enable action to be speeded up more to suit the speed of change and the speed of action in the modern world. This is not easy.
Decision making in much of the corporate world has been organized to suit modern speed. It cannot be transplanted into the judicial system without a clear understanding of how a faster system works and what risks could come with such a change. This is a big subject with much remaining to be explored.
Hopefully the process to achieve accountability for all concerned with January 6th will be successful and relatively quickly.
Peter Burgess
Laura Clawson ... Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday January 19, 2022 · 1:12 PM EST
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 29: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (R) listens prior to Trump's Marine One departure from the South Lawn of the White House July 29, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump is traveling to visit the Double Eagle Energy oil rig in Midland, Texas, and will attend a fundraising luncheon for the Republican Party and his reelection campaign.
If Donald Trump’s lawyers don’t get quick action from the Supreme Court, the first four pages of White House records relating to Jan. 6 could be turned over to the House select committee on Wednesday evening.
The National Archives has identified four pages that the committee wants and that it says are not included in Trump’s lawsuit to block the release of documents. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in December issued an injunction preventing the Biden administration from turning over three tranches of documents—documents the court said can be given to the House select committee at the president’s discretion, and which President Joe Biden has said he would release—but allowed Trump time to appeal to the Supreme Court. The four pages set to be released on Wednesday at 6 PM ET are not included in those three tranches of documents, though, according to the National Archives, and Trump’s lawyers have not moved to specifically block them.
Wednesday, Jan 19, 2022 · 7:20:22 PM EST · Laura Clawson“On December 17, 2021, the Counsel to the President directed the Archivist to withhold those records for an additional thirty days—i.e., through today, January 18, 2022—to enable the former President to seek an injunction if he wished,” the filing explains. “Because the former President has not obtained such an injunction from any court, the release will proceed as scheduled absent an intervening court order.”
The Supreme Court didn’t just allow four pages to be handed over … it's allowing all 700 pages to go to the select committee.
A lawyer for Trump, Jesse Binnall, responded in court on Wednesday with a threat to have the Biden administration held in contempt of court. “Under no circumstances should the government's misconduct and attempt to create an ad hoc record be sanctioned by this Court,” Binnall wrote. “The weighty issues being considered by the Supreme Court should be decided under the normal course, not by the government's attempt to bypass a lawful injunction.”
But according to the National Archives’ Tuesday filing, contempt would not apply: “This Court specifically stated in its December 9, 2021 decision, however, that its administrative injunction encompassed only records from the first three tranches, which were the only tranches at issue in the appeal.” Trump’s lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to enjoin the release of any contested materials, but that has not (yet) happened. The four pages in question therefore fall outside of the existing circuit court injunction but haven’t yet been addressed by the Supreme Court.
Unless the Supreme Court moves to block the release in the few hours remaining before 6 PM, there is no injunction in the way of the National Archives’ plan. The four pages in question come from the Office of Records Management and are a tiny proportion of the more than 700 pages the select committee is seeking over Trump’s objections. That larger mass of documents includes daily presidential diaries and files from then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, among others.