WASHINGTON (Fwrd Axis) — President Joe Biden has ordered the National Archives to release White House visitor logs from the Trump administration to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Former President Donald Trump had attempted to block the release of the records, citing executive privilege. Biden rejected those claims, according to a letter from White House counsel Dana Remus on Tuesday.
Remus wrote “in light of the urgency” of the committee’s investigation, all documents should be released within the next 15 days. Biden rejected the claims on the grounds that the Biden administration voluntarily discloses White House visitor logs each month.
“The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records,” Remus wrote in the letter, obtained Wednesday by FWRD AXIS News. “The records in question are entries in visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on January 6, 2021.”
This is not the first time Trump has claimed executive privilege and been denied.
Back in October, Biden denied Trump’s request over documents he was trying to keep hidden from the committee. The fight went all the way to the Supreme Court, who ruled Trump had no legal standing and released the documents to the committee.
Trump shielded White House visitor logs back in 2017, claiming “the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually” as the reason.
The committee is working to piece together a timeline of events and recently said there were call logs missing from the White House records. There has been speculation they may subpoena Eric Trump’s cell phone records and have been in contact with former Trump officials.
