SCOTUS allows the release of Trump documents to the House.

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The Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for the release of presidential records from the Trump White House to a congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

The court's order means that more than 700 documents will be transferred to Congress that could shed light on the events leading up to the insurrection when hundreds of rioters converged on the Capitol attempting to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas said publicly that he would have granted former President Donald Trump's request to block the document handover from the National Archives to the House select committee. The other justices did not make their votes public.

The Biden White House supports releasing the records to the committee, after determining the disclosure is in the nation's best interest and declining to assert executive privilege. The select committee is seeking more than 700 pages of disputed documents as it explores Trump's role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. That includes his appearance at a January 6 rally in which he directed followers to go to the US Capitol where lawmakers were set to certify the election results and "fight" for their county.

The documents include activity logs, schedules, speech notes and three pages of handwritten notes from then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows -- paperwork that could reveal goings-on inside the West Wing as Trump supporters gathered in Washington and then overran the Capitol, disrupting the certification of the 2020 vote.

Trump is also seeking to keep secret a draft proclamation honoring two police officers who died in the siege and memos and other documents about supposed election fraud and efforts to overturn Trump's loss of the presidency, the National Archives has said in court documents.

The move effectively moots former Trump's pending appeal in the case that centered on keeping the documents secret. Lawyers for Trump say the documents are sensitive and privileged records.

"The disagreement between an incumbent President and his predecessor from a rival political party is both novel and highlights the importance of executive privilege and the ability of Presidents and their advisers to reliably make and receive full and frank advice, without concern that communications will be publicly released to meet a political objective," Trump's lawyer, Jesse R. Binnall told the justices.

He stressed that Congress had no valid legislative purpose for requesting the documents. "Congress may not rifle through the confidential presidential papers of a former President to meet political objections," Binnall added.

But the Biden administration argued that withholding the records based on executive privilege is not in the interest of the United States. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said that in light of the "extraordinary events" of January 6, President Joe Biden had decided that that an assertion of executive privilege is "not justified."

A federal appeals court ruled against Trump, holding that he "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."

The court noted that the events "marked the most significant assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812," but agreed to freeze its ruling until the Supreme Court acted. "Under any of the tests advocated by former President Trump, the profound interests in disclosure advanced by President Biden and the January 6th Committee far exceed his generalized concerns for Executive Branch confidentiality," the panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit wrote.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court cited part of that sentence. "Because the Court of Appeals concluded that President Trump's claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former President necessarily made no difference to the court's decision," the Supreme Court said.

"Tonight's ruling is a major setback for former President Trump in his efforts to block the National Archives from turning over documents to the January 6 Committee," said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. "Although the justices did not rule on whether the court of appeals correctly rejected his suit, by not blocking the handing over now, the justices have allowed that ruling to be the final word."

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing alone, said that he agreed with the court's decision to reject Trump's request, noting that the order was not based on Trump's status as a former President.

But in a statement accompanying the court's ruling, the Trump nominee said he didn't agree with a suggestion by the appeals court that a former President may not invoke privilege over documents that occurred during his presidency.

"I respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeals on that point," Kavanaugh said. "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," he said.

Kavanaugh added, however, that to say that a former President can invoke privilege over such communications "does not mean that the privilege is absolute or cannot be overcome."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics ... index.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: SCOTUS allows the release of Trump documents to the House.

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Poor old Donnie, he's being investigated by the Jan 6 Select Committee, the NY AG and the New York County (Manhattan) DA. We'll see who reaches the bullseye first. Don't know if the Committee will be sharing Trump's documents with anyone else, like the FBI.

On Jan 11th the Committee discredited the conspiracy theory that the FBI instigated the break in at the Capitol.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday dismissed the “unsupported” claim that the FBI helped to incite the insurrection, a theory perpetuated by right-wing media and some Republicans looking to absolve the pro-Trump mob that stormed the building.

In a statement, the panel said it interviewed Ray Epps, an Arizona man who encouraged others to break into the Capitol on Jan. 5 and was seen on the Capitol grounds the day of the attack. Supporters of former president Donald Trump invaded the Capitol to stop t

he affirmation of Joe Biden’s electoral college win, but some Republicans have pushed false claims of antifa involvement or the baseless theory that the FBI had planted agents in the crowd to instigate the violent attack.

In the interview with the committee, Epps denied any involvement with the FBI or any other law enforcement agency.

“The Select Committee is aware of unsupported claims that Ray Epps was an FBI informant based on the fact that he was on the FBI Wanted list and then was removed from that list without being charged,” said a committee spokesman. “The Select Committee has interviewed Mr. Epps. Mr. Epps informed us that he was not employed by, working with, or acting at the direction of any law enforcement agency on January 5th or 6th or at any other time, and that he has never been an informant for the FBI or any other law enforcement agency.”
According to fact checking site PolitiFact, Epps — a Trump supporter who was on Capitol grounds the day of the attack — became the focus of the false theory claiming that federal agents were planted in the pro-Trump mob ahead of the insurrection to incite violence after he was seen in several videos encouraging others to “go into the Capitol.”

On Jan. 8, the FBI put Epps’s picture on a list of participants it was looking for in connection to the riot. Days later, the FBI removed Epps’s picture from the list without charging or arresting him, causing a stir among right-wing conspiracists who took that as a sign that Epps was acting on behalf of the federal agency that day.

Experts have repeatedly debunked this claim, arguing that there are many reasons why the FBI didn’t go after Epps, including the fact that there is no public evidence that the Arizona man entered the interior of the Capitol.

Epps’s actions that day had gone largely ignored until right-wing bloggers posted videos of him inciting others to break into the Capitol on message boards and blogs. Among them was former Trump aide Darren Beattie, who runs a right-wing site that, in two separate posts, claimed Epps was hired by the FBI to agitate the pro-Trump mob. Republican lawmakers opposed to the Jan. 6 investigation, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), picked up the baseless theory and began peddling it, along with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
There is no evidence linking Epps to the FBI. Epps, in fact, once served as the president of the Arizona Oath Keepers, a military group whose members were among those who broke into the Capitol.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ment-riot/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: SCOTUS allows the release of Trump documents to the House.

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It's quite extraordinary that SOMEHOW, the ReThugs decided since 2017 that Congress can only get documents when they have "a legitimate legislative purpose" despite
a) There is nothing in the Constitution that limits Congress' oversight power to that.
b) There is nothing in the 1924 law that empowers certain members of Congress to see ANY tax return they choose that requires "a legitimate legislative purpose" or empowers ANYONE in the Executive branch, including to President, to deny the request.
c) There clearly was NO "legitimate purpose" for constant Benghazi and Clinton eMail "investigations" but was SOLELY to discredit Hillary Clinton's Presidential run. Naturally, that didn't bother people like "Gym" Jordan who NOW "passionately" (ie, phony) argue for "legitimate legislative purpose" but didn't give a SHIT about it when Obama was President and Clinton was the SecState.

We are a doomed Democratic Republic because a too-significant minority, backed by too many judges, are willing to use violence, voter suppression, and crooked vote-counting to hold onto power, who simply believe we'll be better as a one-party state--like Russia, China, and North Korea.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: SCOTUS allows the release of Trump documents to the House.

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Thu Jan 20, 2022 10:54 am It's quite extraordinary that SOMEHOW, the ReThugs decided since 2017 that Congress can only get documents when they have "a legitimate legislative purpose" despite
a) There is nothing in the Constitution that limits Congress' oversight power to that.
b) There is nothing in the 1924 law that empowers certain members of Congress to see ANY tax return they choose that requires "a legitimate legislative purpose" or empowers ANYONE in the Executive branch, including to President, to deny the request.
c) There clearly was NO "legitimate purpose" for constant Benghazi and Clinton eMail "investigations" but was SOLELY to discredit Hillary Clinton's Presidential run. Naturally, that didn't bother people like "Gym" Jordan who NOW "passionately" (ie, phony) argue for "legitimate legislative purpose" but didn't give a SHIT about it when Obama was President and Clinton was the SecState.

We are a doomed Democratic Republic because a too-significant minority, backed by too many judges, are willing to use violence, voter suppression, and crooked vote-counting to hold onto power, who simply believe we'll be better as a one-party state--like Russia, China, and North Korea.
I agree and we can blame TOT and MoscowMitch for being the leaders of this ClusterF*ck called the GOPathetic Party.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: SCOTUS allows the release of Trump documents to the House.

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We're doomed in the same sense we're mortal. The odds that the United States of America persists as a representative democracy until the sun expands to fry our planet to a crisp are vanishingly small. The odds that it could survive in a recognizable form for centuries yet to come? Better.

To speak of doom or fate is to declare powerlessness. It proclaims an inability to change future events. While a great deal of classical philosophy was built upon this assertion, it is false. An honorable Stoic might declare upon the death of a son that "I always knew he was mortal," but that does not absolve a father from the obligation to prevent his child's murder, or excuse him for failing to extend a hand to his drowning son. Succeed or fail, inaction is dishonorable.

Failure is always a possibility, but it only becomes inevitable when we bend the knee.

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