Former prosecutor demolishes Trump's three 'longshot' arguments for blocking White House records
On Monday's edition of CNN's "Out Front," former federal prosecutor Elie Honig demolished former President Donald Trump's complaints in his lawsuit trying to block the Capitol riot committee from obtaining White House records.
The lawsuit, which was filed earlier in the day, came shortly after the Biden administration rejected Trump's request to invoke executive privilege over these documents.
"First, Trump's lawsuit," said anchor Erin Burnett. "You have gone through it. So, does it have a chance of succeeding?"
"Erin, I think this is a longshot for Donald Trump," said Honig. "He raises three primary arguments. The first one is that this is just intended to harass or annoy Donald Trump. That's really just name-calling. There is no law behind that. This committee, obviously, is investigating for a very specific purpose."
Honig said Trump's other arguments were more substantive, although not by very much.
"The second argument is that the committee lacks what we call a legitimate legislative purpose," he said. "Meaning, the argument from Donald Trump is, well, they're not trying to pass laws here. First of all, it's not clear that they have to have that purpose. They have a certain right in Congress to investigate. Second of all, they may well suggest new laws. The 9/11 commission did just that when they investigated."
"And then finally, there is this executive privilege argument," continued Honig. "Now, Trump says as a former president he has a right to assert executive privilege. He's actually right. There is some law saying he does have some ability. But what he leaves out of his papers is the fact that it's fairly clear in our law that if there is disagreement, the current president prevails."
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