Wednesday November 10, 2021
Reconnaissance for the storming of the Capitol
US federal court dismisses Trump’s lawsuit
Former US President Trump wants to prevent access to files relating to the storming of the Capitol. For this he sues and invokes his executive privilege. The judges do not accept this, however, with the words: “Presidents are not kings, the plaintiff is not president.”
A US federal court has approved the surrender of the files on the storming of the Capitol. According to published court documents, the documents may be submitted to a parliamentary committee of inquiry of Congress. Former President Donald Trump, whose supporters stormed the Capitol in January, had sued against the release of the documents. The court believes that “the public interest requires that the legislative and executive have a joint desire to investigate the events that occurred before and on January 6,” said Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan in a statement has been published by several US media.
It must be prevented “that such events ever repeat themselves”. Trump’s “stance that he can override the express will of the executive is based on the assumption that his executive powers are ‘lifelong,'” said Chutkan in the 39-page statement. “But presidents are not kings, the plaintiff is not president.” Trump had invoked the so-called executive privilege in his lawsuit against the surrender. This allows a president to keep certain documents secret. Trump is resisting the handover of more than 770 archive pages to the House of Representatives, which, according to the National Archives, include the records of his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, his former advisor Stephen Miller and former vice legal advisor Patrick Philbin.
Trump also wants to block the publication of the so-called Daily Diary of the White House – a record of his activities, trips, briefings and phone calls. Other documents Trump wants to withhold from MPs include memos to his former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, a handwritten note on the events of January 6, and a draft of his speech at a rally before the Capitol storming. The committee of inquiry called McEnany, Miller and eight other former Trump employees as witnesses on Tuesday.
Trump wants to appeal
“The committee of inquiry wants to find out every detail about what was going on in the White House on January 6th and in the days before,” said committee chairman Bennie Thompson. “We need to know exactly what role the former president and his staff played in efforts to stop the vote counting and whether they were in contact with anyone outside the White House who was trying to overturn the outcome of the election,” explained Thompson. The witnesses summoned would likely have “relevant information” on the matter.
Several US media reported that Trump’s lawyers are already preparing an appeal. Trump’s spokesman Taylor Budowich said on Twitter that Trump would continue to “defend the constitution and the presidency”. The question of executive privilege “is intended to be decided by the appellate courts”. Trump does not recognize his election defeat last November against Joe Biden to this day. He repeated his completely unsubstantiated accusation of massive electoral fraud in front of supporters in Washington on January 6, when Congress wanted to certify Biden’s election victory.
Trump called on his audience to march to the Capitol and “fight the hell out of it”. Hundreds of radical Trump supporters stormed the parliament building as a result. Five people were killed in the course of the violence. The House of Representatives immediately initiated impeachment proceedings against Trump. In the impeachment process in the Senate, however, the two-thirds majority required for a conviction was not achieved. The House of Representatives then set up the committee of inquiry to clarify the background to the storming of the Capitol.