(Headline USA) President Joe Biden is ordering the release of Trump White House visitor logs to the partisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6 uprising at the US Capitol.
The decision once more rejected former President Donald Trump’s claims of executive privilege—an unprecedented violation of norms for Biden that may one day come back on him should future congressional panels opt to investigate his own administration’s corruption.
His Democrat predecessors, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both benefited from the practice, effectively waylaying damaging information from becoming public.
In Trump’s case, however, the logs are unlikely to yield anything harmful so much as give the politically motivated J6 committee ammo to go after a top GOP adversary. Democrats hope to use the probe as a campaign platform in coming election cycles, in order to distract from the failed policies of the current administration.
The committee has sought a trove of data from the National Archives, including presidential records that Trump had fought to keep private. The records being released to Congress are visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were allowed to enter the White House on the the day of the protest.
In a letter sent Monday to the National Archives, White House counsel Dana Remus said Biden had considered Trump’s claim that because he was president at the time the records should remain private, but he decided that it was “not in the best interest of the United States” to do so.
The committee is focused on Trump’s actions from Jan. 6, when he waited hours to tell his supporters to stop the violence and leave the Capitol.
Investigators are also interested in the organization and financing of a Washington rally that morning, during which Trump told supporters to “fight like hell.”
Among the unanswered questions is how close organizers of the rally coordinated with White House officials.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
