Biden Rejects Trump’s Claim of Privilege for White House Visitor Logs
The president informed the National Archives that it should turn over the logs sought by the Jan. 6 committee within 15 days.
By Michael S. Schmidt
Feb. 16, 2022
President Biden ordered the National Archives to hand over a range of visitor logs from the Trump White House to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, rejecting his predecessor’s claim that the material is protected by executive privilege. The decision boosts the committee’s efforts to gather information about who was coming and going from the White House not just on the day of the attack last year but also in the months preceding it as President Donald J. Trump sought to overturn the election.
Mr. Biden had similarly decided last year not to support Mr. Trump’s claim of executive privilege over other batches of White House documents and records sought by the committee. Mr. Trump went to federal court to block the release of those earlier batches but lost. In a letter sent Tuesday to the National Archives, Mr. Biden’s White House counsel, Dana Remus, said Mr. Biden had rejected Mr. Trump’s claims that the visitor logs were subject to executive privilege and that “in light of the urgency” of the committee’s work, the agency should provide the material to the committee within 15 days.
The archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, said in a letter to Mr. Trump on Wednesday that unless prohibited by a court, the National Archives would hand over the logs to the committee on March 3. Mr. Trump did not respond publicly, and it is not clear whether he might go to court again to try to delay or block the release of the logs.
Citing in part the same reasoning as in the earlier case, Ms. Remus told the National Archives that the documents needed to be disclosed in a timely fashion because “Congress has a compelling need.” She said that “constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/us/politics/biden-trump-white-house-visitor-logs.html
March 4, 2022 11:39 AM EST
Last Updated 6 months ago
U.S. Archives turns over Trump White House visitor logs to Jan. 6 committee
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration has delivered White House visitor logs from former President Donald Trump's administration to the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the committee said on Friday.
NARA also turned over records from former Vice President Mike Pence, meeting a March 3 deadline. "Yesterday, the Select Committee received additional production of records from the National Archives," a House of Representatives Select Committee aide said. "This included records that the former President attempted to keep hidden behind claims of privilege."
Trump had tried to block the release of the visitor logs, but President Joe Biden rejected his claim that they were subject to executive privilege, "in light of the urgency" of the committee's work and Congress' "compelling need." read more
Several courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have also ruled against the Republican ex-president's efforts to block the release of various records to the committee.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-archives-turns-over-trump-white-house-visitor-logs-jan-6-committee-2022-03-04/I know there has been discussion about Nixon's court battles, both during and post-Presidency, where the courts have upheld the government's ownership of its documents and effects (including recordings). However there was one decision in 1998 that upheld the assertion that some of the material on the recordings were private conversations (with family, etc) and thus should be returned (to what would be the estate of Nixon).
Court Rules Some Nixon Tapes Are Private
By MICHAEL G. WAGNER
April 1, 1998 12 AM PT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
WASHINGTON —
The long-running legal battle over Richard Nixon’s secret White House tapes hit another milestone Tuesday when a federal appeals court ruled that 820 hours of the recordings are personal. A spokesman for the estate said they probably will be destroyed.
As a result, conversations captured by Nixon’s elaborate taping system--including intimate chats between the president and his family, talks with his physician and some private political conversations--may never be available to historians.
The contentious fight over the rightful resting place for Nixon’s tapes and papers has spanned 24 years, since his resignation in 1974 after the Watergate scandal.
Though the issue of the Watergate tapes first reached the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1970s, it is still not over. In November, a trial is scheduled to determine how much Nixon’s estate should be paid for the 880 tapes and 42 million pages of documents the government confiscated after he left office.
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https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-apr-01-mn-34946-story.html
So apparently "carve-outs" happen and that is probably what may need to happen to separate out "personal" documents/effects, but anything that is "Classified" (any level) should not be subject to any privilege arguments.
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