President Joe Biden is ordering the National Archives to hand over former President Donald Trump’s White House visitor logs to the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
According to The New York Times, Biden’s White House counsel, Dana Remus, penned a letter to the National Archives, saying Biden “had rejected Mr. Trump’s claims that the visitor logs were subject to executive privilege and that ‘in light of the urgency’ of the committee’s work, the agency should provide the material to the committee within 15 days.”
The outlet noted last year Biden decided not to support Trump’s executive claims over other White House documents and records.
Additionally, Remus told the agency the documents “needed to be disclosed in a timely fashion because ‘Congress has a compelling need,'” as the Times reported.
She explained that “constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”
Remus said the records “are entries in visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on Jan. 6, 2021.”
In August 2021, Trump slammed the committee following its records request.
“Unfortunately, this partisan exercise is being performed at the expense of long-standing legal principles of privilege,” Trump said in a statement.
He added, “Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my Administration and the Patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our Nation. These Democrats only have one tired trick — political theater — and their latest request only reinforces that pathetic reality.”
Last month, the Supreme Court rejected the former president’s request to block White House records from being sent to the committee.
