Legal analyst compares Trump’s delusion over executive privilege to Pigpen’s cloud of dirt

President Donald Trump filed a motion to stay the release of hundreds of documents he's been attempting to keep from the House Select Committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Speaking to CNN about the new filing, legal analyst and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa compared it to the cloud of dirt following Peanuts character Pigpen.

With fewer than four hours to stay the document release, Rangappa said that Trump's case hinges on four factors.

"This is whether he's likely to succeed on the merits, whether we'll suffer irreparable harm. The harm to the other party, in this case Congress, if they do grant a stay and the public interest," said Rangappa. "What the judge is saying here is executive privilege again is really about the interests of the Office of the Presidency and the person best suited to do that is a person sitting in the Oval Office which right now is President Biden. What she was saying is I'm not going to second-guess the president by going through this document by document."

She also argued that there is a much larger issue at play, which is the bogus theory that Trump and his lawyers are arguing.

It "is kind of a crazy legal theory. If you remember the character Pigpen from Peanuts that had a cloud of dirt around him," she recalled. "Trump is saying he has a cloud of executive power that follows him wherever he goes which is equal to or greater than the sitting president. He's very unlikely to succeed on that, and he doesn't have a personal interest in these documents. They're presidential documentation, not personal documents. So, it's really hard for him to show harm, whereas the harm to Congress in not fulfilling its constitutional role is quite high."

Congress along with the Judiciary are constitutionally ordered to have equal powers in the U.S. government. So, if two branches of the U.S. government believe something should be released, there's very little likelihood that a third branch would stand up against that.

CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood asked where Lucy was in the story, the infamous character who pulled the football out from under Charlie Brown.

Co-host Alisyn Camerota asked Harwood what Congress would do if the release is paused.

He explained that it's clear the Congressional committee is going on the full attack with this request because they anticipated that Trump was going to oppose them at every turn. In a CNN.com analysis Thursday, former impeachment lawyer in Trump's first trial, Norm Eisen, and two other analysts, anticipate Trump is going to try and run out the clock.

"This case must not take years to percolate through the appellate courts as prior House subpoena cases havedone. The House Committee investigating January 6 is doing everything it can to gather information quickly, and the nation deserves timely answers," the authors wrote.

See the full discussion with Rangappa and Harwood below:

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