Supporters of Donald Trump outside the US Capitol during the attack on the building, January 6, 2021 (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

UPDATE, JAN 20:

The Supreme Court orders Donald Trump to hand over White House records to the House select committee on the Capitol Attack.

Hours later, the National Archives turned over hundreds of pages of documents to the committee.

In the unsigned ruling, the Court upheld the appeals court ruling which rejected Trump’s assertion of executive privilege and said any confidentiality is outweighed by the necessity of a full accounting of the Trumpist assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2020.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas indicated that he might accept the request of Trump’s attorneys.

The other eight justices wrote that Trump’s request presented issues such as “whether and in what circumstances a former President may obtain a court order preventing disclosure of privileged records from his tenure in office, in the face of a determination by the incumbent President [Joe Biden] to waive the privilege”.

In the only signed opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh maintained that “a former president must be able to successfully invoke the presidential communications privilege for communications that occurred during his presidency, even if the current president does not support the privilege claim”.

However, the majority order said the issue was non-binding. As the appeals court ruling had established that “President Trump’s claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent”, there was no need to resolve whether a former President could try to claim executive privilege.

Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson of of Mississippi and co-chair Rep.Liz Cheney of Wyoming hailed “a victory for the rule of law and American democracy” as “our work goes forward to uncover all the facts about the violence of January 6 and its causes”.

UPDATE, DEC 10:

A federal appeals court has ruled that Donald Trump must hand over documents to the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on January 6.

The three judges unanimously supported Congress’s oversight powers in a 68-page ruling. Judge Patricia Millett wrote that January 6 “exposed the fragility of those democratic institutions and traditions that we had perhaps come to take for granted”. She said Trump’s arguments to claim executive privilege were “not close to enough” to prevail.

Former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the political branches over these documents.

Both branches agree that there is a unique legislative need for these documents, and that they are directly relevant to the committee’s inquiry into an attack on the legislative branch and its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power.

Trump is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. The appeals court allowed a temporary injunction deferring the handover of the documents to remain for two weeks.

Trump continues to demand that former staff not provide documents and testimony to the committee. Former chief strategist Steve Bannon is facing contempt of Congress charges, and former chief of staff Mark Meadows is expected to follow after he retracted an agreement to cooperate with the panel.

See also EA on Monocle 24: Meadows, Trump, and the House Committee on the Capitol Attack

UPDATE, NOV 12:

A federal appeals court temporarily holds up the handover of Donald Trump’s documents to the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted a temporary injunction for consideration of Trump’s appeal of Tuesday’s ruling by Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The National Archives had planned to begin the handover at 6 pm on Friday.

Trump’s attorneys asserted that the case presents new questions about whether a former President can sue a successor to withhold government records from Congress, and that the Presidency would be irreparably harmed by any provision of documents.

Judge Chutkan rejected those arguments, writing that the legal position was clear and she would not ignore her ruling to delay the handover.

UPDATE, NOV 10:

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan rejects the attempt by Donald Trump to withhold his documents and records of conversations from the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Meanwhile, the committee issues subpoenas to 10 more Trump associates, including former White House senior advisor Stephen Miller.

Chutkan, of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, said Congress’s Constitutional oversight powers prevail over Trump’s claims of secrecy. She emphasized that President Joe Biden has refused to invoke executive privilege over the material.

The court holds that the public interest lies in permitting — not enjoining — the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again….

[Trump’s] position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power “exists in perpetuity.

But presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.

Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesman, said the ruling will be appealed.

The latest subpoenas expand the scope of the committee investigation of the Trump camp’s discussions trying to block the Congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden, culminating in the “Stop the Steal” rally and the attack on the Capitol.

Miller was one of Trump’s most influential advisors, pursuing a xenophobic anti-immigrant agenda.

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The committee said Miller pressed state legislators to replace Biden electors with those for Trump, as well as spreading Trump’s disinformation about voter fraud.

Also subpoenaed were then-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, former Vice President Mike Pence’s national security advisor Keith Kellogg; then-White House personnel director John McEntee; former White House operations coordinator Molly Michael; former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Christopher Liddell; senior Justice Department counsel Kenneth Klukowski; and White House aides Cassidy Hutchinson, Ben Williamson and Nicholas Luna.

McEnany and McEntee were both close to Trump on January as he watched the Capitol attack on TV. Kellogg was in a key White House meeting where Trump told Pence not to allow Congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory, and was in the White House during the attack.

If former White House Chief of Staff Meadows follows Trump’s command and refuses to testify, his aide Williamson may be able to provide information sought by the committee.

Those subpoenaed have until November 23 to respond.

ORIGINAL ENTRY, NOV 9: The House select committee on the Capitol Attack issues additional subpoenas, including for former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and five other associates of Donald Trump.

The associates includes John Eastman, the Trump lawyer who drafted a memorandum setting out how to block the Congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory on January 6.

See also Trump Lawyer to Vice President Pence During Capitol Attack: You Caused This
How Justice Department Officials Blocked A Trump Coup

The House committee had already subpoenaed Trump aides such as then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, social media director Dan Scavino, and then-Pentagon Chief of Staff Kash Patel.

Trump has called on all of his assistants not to testify or provide documents. On the committee’s recommendation, the House has voted for a contempt charge against Bannon because of his refusal. Negotiations with the others are ongoing.

See also House Holds Bannon in Contempt Over Capitol Attack Hearings

Flynn was dismissed after three weeks in 2017 as National Security Advisor because of his lying to the FBI over his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. He was subsequently convicted, but remained in touch with the Trump camp and pardoned 2 1/2 weeks after the 2020 election.

The pardon came as Flynn publicly called for the seizure of voting machines and invocation of national security emergency powers. In May, he suggested that a coup might reinstate Trump as President.

Eastman’s memorandum suggested that Vice President Mike Pence, presiding over the Congressional certification of the Biden victory, reject electors from seven states. That would turn over the decision to the House of Republican, where a Republican majority among state delegations would ensure that Trump retained the White House.

The plan was discussed among Trump’s advisors, but Pence refused to intervene and senior Justice Department officials threatened mass resignation.

Another of the subpoenas was issued to Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner. He participated in a planning meeting on January 5 at the Willard Hotel in Washington, the headquarters for the organizers of the “Stop the Steal” rallies that preceded the attack on the Capitol.

Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien and senior advisor Jason Miller, who also participated at the January 5 meeting, have also been summoned. So was Angela McCallum, the Trump campaign’s national executive assistant, who left a voice message for a Michigan state representative about whether the campaign could “count on” the legislator to appoint an alternate slate of electors.

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the chair of the committee, said in a statement:

In the days before the January 6 attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes.

The select committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot and who paid for it all.

Despite Trump’s injunction and the defiance of some of his inner circle, more than 150 witnesses have testified in closed-door sessions with the committee’s investigators.

See also Trump Loyalist Clark Refuses to Answer Committee Questions About Capitol Attack

Kerik said in a statement, “I was not hired to overturn the will of the people — only to look into the integrity of the process and ensure that the results accurately reflected the will of the people. As to the events of Jan. 6, I was not involved.”

The other subpoenaed Trump aides did not respond to requests for comment.