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The White House backed a federal judge who ruled that former President Donald Trump cannot block the release of documents relating to the January 6 Capitol riot, the Associated Press reported.
White House spokesman Mike Gwin told reporters that the decision to prevent Trump from protecting the documents "is consistent with what the president has already said" regarding the Capitol attack.
"It is absolutely vital for there to be a full accounting of the events on that day to ensure that something like that never happens again," Gwin continued.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said that the documents cannot be blocked because of Congress' strong public interest in obtaining them. The documents could shed light on the former president's actions during the day's events, which were primarily instigated by his supporters.
"At bottom, this is a dispute between a former and incumbent President," Chutkan wrote in her official decision statement, "and the Supreme Court has already made clear that in such circumstances, the incumbent's view is accorded greater weight."
The National Archives plan to turn over Trump's records to the committee investigating the January 6 riot by November 12. The documents include call logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes from former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. The archives have also said that they have obtained "a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity" that they plan to send to the House committee.
Trump's lawyers are planning to appeal the decision. Spokesperson Taylor Budowich said on Twitter that the former president "remains committed to defending the Constitution & the Office of the Presidency, & will be seeing this process through."
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Chutkan also denied a preliminary injunction on the case. She added that President Joe Biden had the authority to waive executive privilege over the documents despite Trump's assertions otherwise.
The case probably will eventually head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump "does not acknowledge the deference owed" to Biden's judgment as the current president, Chutkan said. She noted examples of past presidents declining to assert executive privilege and rejected what she said was Trump's claim that executive privilege "exists in perpetuity."
"Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President," she said.
Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who leads the House committee, said in a statement after the ruling that the records are crucial for understanding the attack and "in my view, there couldn't be a more compelling public interest than getting answers about an attack on our democracy."
On CNN, Thompson said Trump should stop behaving like a "spoiled brat."
The nine-member committee is investigating not just Trump's conduct on January 6—when he told a rally to "fight like hell" shortly before rioters overran law enforcement—but his efforts in the months before the riot to challenge election results or obstruct a peaceful transfer of power.
The committee has interviewed more than 150 witnesses and issued more than 30 subpoenas, including ones announced Tuesday to then-press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and former top White House adviser Stephen Miller. It is unclear whether the lawmakers will eventually seek to have Trump testify.
Trump has attacked the committee's work and continued to promote unfounded conspiracy theories about widespread fraud in the election, despite the fact that Biden's victory was certified by all 50 states and his claims have been rebuked by courts across the country.
In suing to block the National Archives from turning over documents, Trump called the House committee's request a "vexatious, illegal fishing expedition" that was "untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose." Allowing the House to get access to his records would also damage executive privilege for future presidents, Trump's lawyers argued.
But Chutkan said the "the public interest lies in permitting—not enjoining—the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again."
