Former President Donald Trump’s legal team told the Supreme Court that the House committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, would not be harmed if the justices delayed the transfer of Trump administration records to congressional investigators, according to The Hill.
The statement came as the legal battle between Trump and the House panel continues, with the former president and investigators clashing over a cache of records that Trump asserts are covered by executive privilege and which investigators say would help them piece together the events of Jan. 6.
In their latest filing, Trump’s attorneys disputed the committee’s assertion that a drawn-out legal fight threatens to undermine its work.
”Respondents will not be harmed by delay,” Trump attorneys wrote, referencing the House panel. ”Despite their insistence that the investigation is urgent, more than a year has passed since Jan. 6, 2021. Years remain before the next transition of power.”
”The Committee and the Court have time to make a swift but measured analysis of these important issues and make sure that in the rush to conduct its investigation, the Committee does not do irreparable structural damage in the process,” they added.
While the Jan. 6 committee has not set a deadline for completing its investigation, its chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., has previously said that the panel hopes to wrap up by early spring.
Trump went to the Supreme Court last month after lower federal courts in Washington denied his request to stop the National Archives from handing over the records. His attorneys have requested that the disputed materials be shielded from disclosure while the court considers his formal appeal.
Judges in the lower federal courts quickly rejected Trump’s claims and focused on President Joe Biden’s refusal to invoke executive privilege over requested Trump-era documents. Biden declined to invoke the privilege after determining that the House panel’s need for the records was greater than any benefit of keeping them sealed.
Meanwhile, the House panel has stressed the importance of a timely resolution to the case.
”The Select Committee’s work is of the highest importance and urgency: investigating one of the darkest episodes in our nation’s history, a deadly assault on the United States Capitol and Congress, and an unprecedented disruption of the peaceful transfer of power from one President to the next,” it told the justices last month.
Via Newsmax