Attorneys trying to claim executive privilege for former President Donald Trump were met with a skeptical panel of federal judges on Tuesday. The twice-impeached one-term president is seeking to block the release of White House communications and other records to the lawmakers that investigating the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Let’s just say that Trump’s attorneys aren’t having a good day.
One attorney, Justin Clark, was grilled after one of the appeals court judges on the panel asked him why he thinks a former president should have more authority than a current president when it comes to decisions about exerting executive privilege.
Clark reportedly told Judge Patricia Ann Millet that a former president could sue to stop a current president from using a previous administration’s records to conduct foreign policy and national security decision-making.
However, Clark couldn’t give Judge Patricia Ann Millett a situation where he thinks a court could let a current president use those documents under her hypothetical, justice correspondent Andrew Feinberg reported on Twitter.
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Things went even further south from there.
Judge Jackson is pointing out that GSA v Nixon was about whether Nixon retained a confidentiality interest in documents Congress had passed a law to let the US take possession of after he’d resigned.
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) November 30, 2021
“So to the extent that you find in that case, the right to come to court, to dispute the current president’s ability to release the records. I don’t see that in that case, because that’s not the circumstance. I also don’t necessarily see it in the statute,” Judge Jackson said.
Trump’s attorneys didn’t seem prepared to answer the easiest of questions.
“This all boils down to who decides,” Judge Ketanji Jackson said, according to CNBC. “Who decides when it’s in the best interest of the United States to disclose presidential records? Is it the current occupant of the White House or the former?”
President Joe Biden has made it clear that he won’t invoke executive privilege for the former president. It’s up to the current president and not the former one. Trump previously lashed in a statement over Biden’s decision not to be a roadblock in the investigation, and now, he’s probably going to throw another fit after a panel of judges grilled his attorneys.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
