Discouraged former President Donald Trump infamously fought tooth and nail against the release of his White House records by the National Archives and Records Administration to the House Select Committee that is currently investigating the violent January 6th Capitol riot enacted by his supporters, and more specifically, the ex-president’s potential, personal role in igniting it. Like so many of his warpaths of this nature, the one-term, twice-impeached former White House occupant was unsuccessful in his desperate attempts to keep his presidential records and documentations hidden from the House panel and the American public.
Among the documents and records that were ultimately handed over to the House Select Committee (whatever wasn’t torn up, stuffed in a “burn bag,” or flushed down a White House toilet, and of course, there are the numerous boxes that Trump packed with him to Mar-a-Lago) was visitor logs from the Trump White House during Donald’s four-year term in office.
CNN now reports that the January 6th House Select Committee has now officially, physically acquired the requested documents that Donald Trump fought so desperately hard against, and the committee’s chair, Rep. Bernie Thompson, has already confirmed that the visitor log records are proving to be “very fruitful.” In lamens terms, it seems to mean the panel is finding what they need in those logs and records that Donald Trump never wanted to see the light of day.
The records and documents were officially turned over to the January 6th House panel by the National Archives on Thursday after an order to do so directly from President Joe Biden. The National Archives also turned over records from Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, meeting a March 3rd deadline that had been set in the case.
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Select Committee Chair Bernie Thompson reportedly spoke with CNN’s Annie Grayer and confirmed that he and the panel were already finding both sets of documents “very fruitful,” though he did not provide any further detail as to the specifics of what the panel has or has not discovered.
Jan 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson tells me that the committee has “started receiving” Trump White House visitor logs and records of former Vice President Mike Pence and that the docs are “very fruitful.”
— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) March 8, 2022
The House Committee sought the Trump White House visitor logs specifically for the purpose of attempting to track who may have personally discussed the January 6th Capitol attack with the now-ex-president inside the Oval Office.
Donald Trump has vehemently attempted to block the release of these exact documents, still under the pretext of executive privilege. President Biden smacked down Trump’s efforts and his executive claims “in light of the urgency” of the House panel’s investigation and the “compelling need” for Congress to uncover the real truth regarding what drove the violent attack against this nation’s Capitol building.
In a letter to National Archivist David Ferriero last month, White House counsel Dana Remus wrote, “The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interest of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records.”
Remus specifically noted that the Biden administration, following the precedent set by many previous administrations, has maintained transparency by releasing its White House visitor logs on a monthly schedule.
It’s become increasingly clear that Donald Trump can fight this until he’s blue in the face, or Devin Nunes’ cow comes home — the committee is not back down, and you are going to get caught. It’s just a matter of time now.
Featured image via screen capture
