Trump asks appeals court to stop release of his White House records ahead of Friday deadline

CNN

By Kara Scannell

Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal appeals court to briefly stop the release of key White House records from his presidency to the House January 6 committee while he appeals a lower court’s decision that he can’t claim executive privilege to keep them secret.

The filing is a last-ditch effort ahead of a Friday 6 p.m. deadline for the House committee investigating the Capitol attack to receive 46 records, including White House call logs, visitor logs, drafts of speeches and three handwritten memos from Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows.

In total, more than 700 documents from Trump’s presidency are expected to be turned over by the National Archives to the committee in the coming weeks.

Judge Tanya Chutkan twice rejected Trump’s bid for a preliminary injunction to prevent the National Archives from complying with document request, noting in a Wednesday night ruling that Trump’s attorneys did not put forward new legal arguments or new facts to alter her previous ruling that held executive privilege belongs to the office — not the individual.

“In this appeal, the Court will consider novel and important constitutional issues of first impression concerning separation of powers, presidential records, and executive privilege,” Trump’s attorneys wrote Thursday.

This story is breaking and will be updated.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.