Nobody is fooled by what former president Donald Trump is doing with his legal challenges to document requests by the January 6th Select Committee. He is trying to run out the clock, to somehow delay the investigation into the insurrection until the November 2022 elections can, let’s be blunt, save his ass.
Endless legal delay, keeping adversaries tied up in court until they go away, is a habit of a lifetime for the man. It’s his go-to move. He is accustomed to being able to out-spend aggrieved creditors and women with claims against him. But not the U.S. government.
Having lost his claim of executive privilege last night in federal court, his attorneys immediately appealed (Washington Post):
A federal judge in Washington ruled late Tuesday that hundreds of pages of Trump White House records can be turned over to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol despite the former president’s objections.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan clears the way for the release of government records requested by Congress beginning Friday. Attorneys for former president Donald Trump immediately appealed and moved to bar release of the documents by the National Archives pending a ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The House panel and the Justice Department “contend that discovering and coming to terms with the causes underlying the January 6 attack is a matter of unsurpassed public importance because such information relates to our core democratic institutions and the public’s confidence in them,” Chutkan wrote in a 39-page opinion. “The court agrees.”
Only the sitting president can claim privilege, Chutkan wrote (Pg. 18), and Joe Biden has refused:
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.” Hearing Tr. at 19:21-22. 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 honor” that assertion.
As Ryan Goodman tweeted (above), the call was not even close.
Chutkan wrote, “Accordingly, the court holds that the public interest lies in permitting—not enjoining—the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again.”
And if Trump cannot claim privilege, neither can former adviser Steve Bannon who stands eligible for prosecution for contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the committee.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to bring Bannon’s case to a grand jury for indictment. The court’s ruling may be push he’s needed to move against Bannon.
Laurence Tribe, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, believes Garland should have acted already in the House’s October 21 criminal contempt referral of Steve Bannon. Tribe gave an interview Tuesday night to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. With this clear ruling, Garland has no obstacle left standing. Either the rule of law applies, r the law is meaningless.
“Merrick Garland should go ahead and not get in the way of this absolutely vital congressional investigation,” Tribe said.
Despite Tribe’s reference to a rotund lady having sung, this isn’t over. Trump is in a corner, but not cornered. Privilege has its privileges. Washington protects its own. Recall that even after spending time in prison over the Iran-Contra affair, Oliver North emerged as a right-wing hero. Bannon could be drooling at the prospects of his cash flow at the end of a minimal prison term. Chutkan’s ruling may not have been a close call, but should evidence support it, whether any Department of Justice has the cojones to prosecute a former president is not.