WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 05: U.S. President Donald Trump shushes journalists before signing the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act in the Rose Garden at the White House June 05, 2020 in Washington, DC. In the midst of nationwide protests against the death of George Floyd, the U.S. Labor Department announced the unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, a surprising improvement in the nation’s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Image: Getty)
President Joe Biden has declined former President Donald Trump’s claim of executive privilege and granted January 6 select committee access to the Trump White House documents from Trump’s term.
The Biden administration announced Friday it would hand committee access to records regarding the previous administration, specifically during the January 6 riot.
“After my consultations with the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, President Biden has determined than an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the Documents,” White House counsel Dana Remus said in a letter to Archivist of the United States David Ferriero.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also confirmed this on Friday during the press briefing.
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“The documents are Trump-era White House records responsive to the select committee’s request to the archivist. And so, there is a process where the former president would have a period of time to assess executive privilege and then the current president and team would have a period of time to review that request,” Psaki said Friday.
Following the White House’s Friday decision, Trump claimed that it is another “Witch Hunt” against him by so-called “Radical Left Democrats.”
“The Radical Left Democrats tried the RUSSIA Witch Hunt, they tried the fake impeachments, and now they are trying once again to use Congress to persecute their political opponents. Their requests are not based in law or reality—it’s just a game to these politicians,” Trump said in a statement.
“The Democrats are drunk on power, but this dangerous assault on our Constitution and important legal precedent will not work,” he said. “This Committee’s fake investigation is not about January 6th any more than the Russia Hoax was about Russia. Instead, this is about using the power of the government to silence ‘Trump’ and our Make America Great Again movement, the greatest such achievement of all time.”
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