WH confirms it blocked Trump from asserting executive privilege regarding Jan. 6 activities
During a briefing on Friday, press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that the White House has blocked an attempt by former President Donald Trump’s attorneys to assert executive privilege and prevent the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack from gaining access to documents about his activities on that day. Psaki said President Biden has been clear “that he believes it to be of the utmost importance for both Congress and the American people to have a complete understanding of the events of that day to prevent them from happening again.”
Video Transcript
- Can you confirm that the White House is authorizing the National Archives to turn over documents covering all communications related to [INAUDIBLE] Committee on January 6?
JEN PSAKI: The administration takes the events of January 6 incredibly seriously, as the president said on its six-month anniversary. That day posed an existential crisis and a test of whether our democracy could survive. It was, in many respects, a unique attack on the foundations of our democracy. The president is dedicated to ensuring that something like that could never happen again, which is why the administration is cooperating with ongoing investigations, including the January 6 Select Committee, to bring to light what happened.
As a part of this process, the president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not warranted for the first set of documents from the Trump White House that have been provided to us by the National Archives. As we've said previously, this will be an ongoing process. And this is just the first set of documents. And we will evaluate questions of privilege on a case-by-case basis. But the president has also been clear that he believes it to be of the utmost importance for both Congress and the American people to have a complete understanding of the events of that day to prevent them from happening again.
