Former president Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to block the release of his White House papers to a congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack, confronting the court with the fallout from the riot for the first time.
Mr Trump is seeking to override President Joe Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege over the documents.
A federal appeals court said Mr Biden’s stance and Congress’s need for the documents combined to outweigh Mr Trump’s claim of secrecy.
The attack, which grew out of Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn the presidential election results, took place as Congress was meeting to certify Mr Biden’s victory.
The former president and his allies have resisted the House select committee’s effort to investigate the attack and determine exactly what role Mr Trump played.
In separate requests, Mr Trump on Thursday asked the justices to take up his appeal and block the release of the records in the meantime. The appeals court had given him 14 days to seek Supreme Court intervention.
The documents will remain secret until the high court acts.
The disputed records, being held by the National Archives, include visitor and call logs, emails, draft speeches and handwritten notes. Mr Trump is objecting to the release of about 800 pages of material, saying they involve protected presidential communications.
“Congress may not rifle through the confidential presidential papers of a former president to meet political objectives or advance a case study,” Mr Trump’s lawyers argued in court papers.
“These sweeping requests are indicative of the committee’s broad investigation of a political foe, divorced from any of Congress’s legislative functions laid out in the constitution.”
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in a 3-0 decision the records were vital to the committee’s investigation.
The committee has “demonstrated a sound factual predicate for requesting these presidential documents specifically,” Judge Patricia Millett said for the panel, which consisted of three Democratic appointees.
“There is a direct linkage between the former president and the events of the day.”
