House Jan. 6 select committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) hit back at ex-President Donald Trump on Monday evening after he filed a lawsuit attempting to block the committee from obtaining documents from the National Archives.
Thompson and Cheney slammed Trump’s suit, which cited “executive privilege” as the basis for blocking the committee’s subpoena to the National Archives, as “nothing more than an attempt to delay and obstruct our probe” in a joint statement.
“Precedent and law are on our side,” they said. “Executive privilege is not absolute and President [Joe] Biden has so far declined to invoke that privilege.”
Thompson and Cheney asserted that the panel’s authority to get the records, which focus on Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election while in office, “is clear.”
“We’ll fight the former President’s attempt to obstruct our investigation while we continue to push ahead successfully with our probe on a number of other fronts,” the lawmakers said.
Earlier on Monday, Trump sued both the committee and the National Archives in D.C. federal court to block the transfer of the documents after Biden declined to invoke executive privilege under the Presidential Records Act.
The ex-president’s legal team requested that the judge either toss out the subpoena or declare the Presidential Records Act unconstitutional.
The attorneys argued that allowing the committee to obtain the records “would destroy the very fabric of our constitutional separation of powers.”
I’m no fan of Liz Cheney, but I am damned glad she is on this committee and taking the hard line.
(I am not convinced this is merely because she has an ethical bone or two in her body, but rather I think this is fully calculated and she is looking much further down the road and is preparing for after the implosion, where she and a few others will stand pretty unblemished by Trumpism as a result of her distancing now.)
We’ll know when she asks daddy to invite some people to go duck hunting
“Precedent and law are on our side,” they said.
Call us when the courts finally side with the committee and Trumpco is forced to cough up everything you’re demanding.
I’ll set a reminder to check back in the fall of 2027.
Considering this committees dithering on holding those defying subpoenas accountable, I have little faith in them doing much now.
Biden could publish all the documents tomorrow but of course is petrified of upsetting the GOP, his worthy bipartisan legislative partners.