A federal judge on Wednesday night rejected the latest attempt by former President Donald Trump to block the release of documents from his administration surrounding the events of Jan. 6.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied an emergency injunction filed by the president’s lawyers a day after she ruled against the former president, who was trying to stop a House committee from receiving scores of White House documents from the Trump administration pertaining to the Capitol riot.
In Wednesday’s ruling, Chutkan declined to reverse her own ruling and said Trump still has time to file an appeal for an injunction. The National Archives on Friday plans to turn over Trump’s records to the House committee investigating the January riot.
“This court will not effectively ignore its own reasoning in denying injunctive relief in the first place to grant injunctive relief now,” Chutkan wrote.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s lawyers have promised to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which could send to the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. His attorneys have yet to file their appeal to the D.C. Circuit.
On Tuesday, Chutkan said Congress has a strong public interest in obtaining records that could shed light on the Jan. 6 attack. She also said that as the incumbent, President Joe Biden had the authority to waive executive privilege over the documents despite Trump’s assertions of privilege.
Biden, however, has repeatedly said that executive privilege should not be invoked to block the Jan. 6 committee’s document requests.
The House committee requested documents in March and August from the National Archives that were related to the Trump administration’s actions before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump later notified the Archives that he formally asserted executive privilege.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
