For months, Donald Trump has been predictably Trumpian with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot. They’ve been asking to see hundreds of documents from the Trump-era White House, which are stored in the National Archives. He’s responded by doing what he’s always done when confronted with something that could land him in legal trouble: Delay with sleazy tactics until the matter blows over. (He’s currently trying it again with the New York State Attorney General.) But this time, at least, it seems not even the three (3) Supreme Court justices he appointed to the bench can save him.
As per The New York Times, on Wednesday, six out of the seven Supremes rejected the former president’s attempt to use “executive privilege” — used by sitting presidents, which he is not, having lost re-election by over seven million votes — to block the committee from seeming possibly damning intel. They issued a single paragraph order, though they didn’t disclose who dissented. Indeed, only Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed circa the George H.W. Bush era, publicly noted a dissent.
Within hours of the decision, the National Archives officially released hundreds of Trump-era documents to the committee.
It’s not the first time the Supreme Court, which was radically changed during Trump’s single term, have ruled against him and his allies. In early December, a month into his crusade to lodge baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, they unanimously threw him under the bus. That included Amy Coney Barrett, whose appointment was rushed after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, despite the fact that the country was already voting for his successor.
(Via NYT)