Trump asks the Supreme Court to block the release of his White House records to Jan. 6 committee

President Donald Trump‘s lawyers on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling ordering providing the House committee probing January 6th access to White House documents.

Trump’s legal move comes weeks after a panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the National Archives to hand over the materials to the committee.

It now puts the significant constitutional challenge before the high court, where Trump nominated three of the nine sitting justices. 

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel – two appointed by Barack Obama and one by Biden – unanimously upheld a lower court’s ruling denying Trump a preliminary injunction to stop the release of records.

The January 6th Committee has sought records, logs, photographs, and calendars as it probes Trump’s election overturn effort and the Capitol riot on the day Congress met to count the electoral votes that made Biden president. 

Trump’s lawyers argue that ‘both the Constitution and the Presidential Records Act give former Presidents a clear right to protect their confidential records from premature dissemination. This case presents a clear threat to that right.’

The Biden Administration has not sought to withhold the documents by invoking executive privilege, citing the seriousness of the events of Jan. 6th. 

If the high court takes the case, as expected, it would keep in place an administrative injunction pending the outcome. 

The opinion, authored by Judge Patricia Millet, an Obama appointee, said there was ‘no basis’ for overturning President Joe Biden‘s position that he would not exercise executive privilege to keep the documents sealed. 

Trump’s lawyers want the high court to block the Archives from complying with the records request

The panel is conducting a broad probe of the events of Jan. 6th

Trump sued Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., arguing against President Joe Biden’s decision to waive any privilege on the documents

The unanimous order came from a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals

The Appeals Court panel ruled with firm language knocking down Trump’s legal basis.

‘On the record before us, former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the Political Branches over these documents,’ the panel wrote. 

Millet’s opinion stated the question as one of whether the court could ‘override’ Biden’s determination at Trump’s request. 

Trump sued House Jan. 6th Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) over the requests for documents following its requests for information held at the Archives. 

The Committee has been firing off subpoenas to former officials, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who failed to comply with a subpoena to appear, and whom the House voted to hold in contempt.

It also seeks testimony from two House GOP lawmakers who communicated with Trump and Meadows.