Jan. 19 (UPI) — The National Archive intends to release four pages of Trump White House records Wednesday to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to a court filing.
The Justice Department filed the letter late Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Trump has previously asked the Supreme Court to block the release of records related to the Jan. 6 attack.
“Because the former President (Trump) has not obtained such an injunction from any court, the release will proceed as scheduled absent an intervening court order,” Tuesday’s filing said.
The remaining documents being sought by the committee are being withheld after a federal appeals court granted the former president a temporary injunction in November, blocking their release. Those documents are held in three separate tranches, or groups. A fourth tranche is not covered by that injunction, although two pages will be held back because of their similarity to pages in the first three tranches.
The Justice Department said it crafted the letter to the court in “an abundance of caution because counsel for the former President asserted today that releasing the fourth tranche of records to the Committee would violate this Court’s November 11, 2021 administrative stay order precluding the Archivist from releasing the records requested by the House Select Committee over which appellant asserts executive privilege.”
However, it points out that the injunction is limited to the first three tranches of documents, and that absent a new order, pages from the fourth tranche would be released as scheduled.
The letter noted that President Joe Biden called for release of the documents to be delayed through Tuesday “to ensure the former President had an opportunity to seek judicial relief.”
“His (Trump) only request for relief with respect to records from the fourth tranche was in the Supreme Court.”
If the documents are released, Trump’s lawyers have threatened to “seek to hold them (Justice Department) in contempt for violating the injunction,” according to Politico.
“Their strategy can only be interpreted as an attempt to interfere with this Court’s and the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction,” attorney Jesse Binnall wrote in a letter to the court Tuesday night.
Barring a court order, the pages are expected to be turned over to the committee at 6 p.m.
This comes after the committee on Tuesday subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani and three other allies of former President Donald Trump.
