Trump vows ‘executive privilege’ will stop Capitol riot committee from seizing his phone records

Donald Trump has raged against the 6 January Select Committee’s request that federal agencies hand over the phone records of members of his family and other close associates from the days leading up to the Capitol Insurrection.

Among those targeted by the requests are the former president himself; Mike Pence; Mr Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani; and family members including his wife, Melania, his daughter, Ivanka, and his sons, Eric and Donald Jr.

In an angry statement issued via his “Save America” fundraising organisation, the sometime president raged at “The Leftist ‘select committee’,” which he claimed “has further exposed itself as a partisan sham and waste of taxpayer dollars with a request that’s timed to distract Americans from historic and global catastrophes brought on by the failures of Joe Biden and the Democrats.”

Mr Trump also claimed that the committee’s request is violating “executive privilege”, which he has repeatedly cited in efforts to block Congress and law enforcement from questioning former staff and Trump family members.

“Unfortunately, this partisan exercise is being performed at the expense of long-standing legal principles of privilege. Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my Administration and the Patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our Nation. These Democrats only have one tired trick – political theater – and their latest request only reinforces that pathetic reality.”

Along with the phone records, the committee has requested all White House call logs from 6 January. Accounts differ as to exactly what Mr Trump did and said while the Capitol was underway, and particularly pivotal to the investigation are calls he may have made to or received from particular members of Congress.

Also at issue are the White House’s communications with law enforcement and the Department of Defence, as the committee is also focused on the slowness to deploy reinforcements to help overwhelmed police secure the Capitol.

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