President Biden has ordered the National Archives to release visitor logs of the Trump White House to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, despite Mr. Trump’s claims of executive privilege.
In a letter to the National Archives, White House Counsel Dana Remus said Mr. Biden is directing the agency to turn over the logs, which show information on White House visitors for dates including the day of the pro-Trump riot.
“The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records,” Ms. Remus wrote on Tuesday to David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States.
The visitor logs from the day riot will now be turned over within 15 days to the House committee investigating the attack. The records show appointment information for people who were allowed to visit the White House on that day.
Mr. Ferrio told Mr. Trump in a letter on Wednesday that he would deliver the documents to the House committee on March 3 “unless prohibited by court order.”
Ms. Remus said the Biden administration voluntarily discloses such visitor logs every month and most of the information that Mr. Trump was claiming privilege over would be publicly released under the current policy.
Mr. Trump’s office had no immediate comment. The Supreme Court denied Mr. Trump’s emergency request last month to block the House committee from obtaining White House records related to the attack.
The committee has sought documents from the National Archives including calendars, records of events that Mr. Trump attended and logs of phone calls from Jan. 6. The panel is attempting to reconstruct a timeline of actions by Mr. Trump and top White House advisers before and during the attack.
“Preserving the confidentiality of this type of record generally is not necessary to protect long-term institutional interests of the Executive Branch,” Ms. Remus said.
The Presidential Records Act mandates that records made by a sitting president and his staff be preserved in the National Archives, and an outgoing president is responsible for turning over documents to the agency when leaving office.
Mr. Biden has waived executive privilege for many other records sought by the committee.
The panel is probing Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, when Republican lawmakers and others were urging him to call off his supporters and to leave the Capitol. Investigators are also interested in the organization and financing of a Washington rally the morning of the riot, where Mr. Trump told supporters to “fight like hell.”
Mr. Trump’s White House announced early on that it would not follow the policy of his predecessor, President Obama, of disclosing the names of most visitors to the White House, citing national security and privacy concerns. Mr. Biden returned to the Obama policy of disclosing the information, with some exceptions.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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