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Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block White House records from being obtained by the congressional committee investigating the January 6 events on Capitol Hill.
In the document, Trump’s defense accuses the January 6 Committee of “harassing President Trump and senior members of his administration” by sending an “illegal, baseless and overly broad” request for records from his administration to the U.S. National Archives.
“The Committee’s request amounts to nothing less than a vexatious and illegal fishing expedition openly endorsed by Biden and designed to unconstitutionally investigate President Trump and his administration,” reads the document, which further states that American law precludes “such impulsive and egregious action against a former president” and his advisers.
The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Columbia, says that the materials requested by the January 6 Committee are covered by a legal doctrine known as executive privilege, which protects the confidentiality of some communications between White House officials.
“The Committee’s requests are unprecedented in their breadth and scope and are not tied to any legitimate legislative purpose,” Trump’s attorney Jesse Binnall wrote in the lawsuit.
According to the document, the January 6 Committee’s requests included more than fifty individual requests for documents and information, and named more than thirty individuals, including those who worked inside and outside the government during the “exceedingly extensive” time period it seeks to cover.
Earlier this month, Biden authorized the National Archives, a government agency that maintains records of Trump’s time in office, to release an initial batch of documents requested by the Select Committee.
