FILE PHOTO: Tear gas is released into a crowd of protesters, with one wielding a Confederate battle flag that reads “Come and Take It,” during clashes with Capitol police at a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
November 9, 2021
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. federal judge has ruled that a congressional committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol can access some of former President Donald Trump’s White House records.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in the District of Columbia rejected an argument by Trump’s lawyers that telephone records, visitor logs and other White House documents should be kept from the committee.
Trump had argued that the materials requested by the House of Representatives committee were covered by a legal doctrine known as executive privilege that protects the confidentiality of some White House communications.
He requested an injunction blocking the National Archives, a federal agency that holds his White House records, from complying with the committee’s document requests.
The committee has said it needs the requested materials to understand the role Trump may have played in fomenting the riot.
Trump gave an incendiary speech before the assault on the Capitol, repeating his false claims that the November 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud and urging his supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to “stop the steal.”
His supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to prevent Congress from certifying now-President Joe Biden’s election victory. Biden, a Democrat, took office on Jan. 20.
About 700 people face criminal charges stemming from the riot.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Peter Cooney)
