The first subpoenas issued by the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 back on September 24, included a large number of document requests. Included in these requests were a large block of material from the National Archive that originated in the Trump White House. Donald Trump immediately attempted to claim executive privilege over these documents, but President Joe Biden cleared them for release to Congress.  So Trump did what Trump does—he took it to court. On October 18, Trump sued committee chair  Bennie Thompson and Keeper of the National Archives Jeff James in federal District Court.  On Tuesday evening, The Washington Post reports that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled against Trump saying that she agreed with the House committee’s contention that these documents, involve “a matter of unsurpassed public importance.” Judge Chutkan’s opinion denies Trump’s claim and explicitly acknowledges the House request meets all the Constitutional provisions by holding a potential legislative purpose. The court holds that 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. In response, Trump has done exactly as expected and immediately appealed the ruling to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Read more