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You are here: Home / Politics / Dump those docs!

Dump those docs!

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To stymie the congressional investigation into the January 6th coup attempt, Trump is trying to claim executive privilege to shield documents that account for his and his minions’ activities that day. But the Biden White House favors disclosure, according to The Washington Post:

Trump has said he will cite “executive privilege” to block information requests from the House select committee investigating the events of that day, banking on a legal theory that has successfully allowed presidents and their aides to avoid or delay congressional scrutiny for decades, including during the Trump administration.

But President Biden’s White House plans to err on the side of disclosure given the gravity of the events of Jan. 6, according to two people familiar with discussions who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.

The article cites a bunch of experts, including lawyers who served Democratic administrations and in pre-Trump Republican White Houses, and the consensus seems to be that post-executive privilege isn’t a thing. Unsurprisingly, one of the two* go-to celebrity Trump-defender legal beagles disagrees:

“There is an unbroken tradition of deference by the incumbent presidents to their predecessors,” [GWU Professor Jonathan] Turley said. “In the past, incumbent presidents would generally support their predecessors in restricting access, despite partisan differences. It appears we may be poised here to shatter that tradition.”

In the past, incumbent presidents weren’t dealing with predecessors who claimed they won an election they lost and incited violence to cling to power. Dump those docs!

*Alan Dershowitz did not weigh in. 

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  3. 3.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    “There is an unbroken tradition of deference by the incumbent presidents to their predecessors,” [GWU Professor Jonathan] Turley said.

    Oh, so traditions and norms are supposed to matter now that it’s a Republican that can be burned? GTFO with that BS Turdley

  4. 4.

    MisterForkbeard

    Wait, Jonathan Turley came out with a contrarian point of view that with great sadness supports Republicans and put the blame on Democrats for being the people REALLY at fault? Imagine that! No one could ever have seen that coming.

    Also, speaking of document dumps the Cyber Ninjas are going to finally ‘present’ their Arizona Fraudit findings. On a Friday afternoon. After hinting that they couldn’t find anything. Nice.

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Put them on the Internet at once.  Even if the USSC issues some sort of idiotic order, it’s too late, the bell has rung.

  9. 9.

    germy

    @MisterForkbeard:  Also, speaking of document dumps the Cyber Ninjas are going to finally ‘present’ their Arizona Fraudit findings.

    The horse paste cured their covid?  I thought they were all hospitalized.

  11. 11.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s also crap – Trump and his toadies published a number of internal Obama White House documents that selectively and badly quoted Biden and Obama in order to pretend they did something untoward.

    It’s only “unprecedented” because Biden and Obama didn’t try to pretend they should block it.

    ETA: And @hueyplong has this right – if they suspect there’s a crime in there, they should just release it anyway. Privilege (if it existed) is completely moot.

  13. 13.

    steve g

    “In the past, incumbent presidents would generally support their predecessors in restricting access, despite partisan differences.

    In the past, presidential candidates supported the selection of the next president by election.

    It appears we may be poised here to shatter that tradition.”

    Yes, if by tradition you mean selecting the next president by a general election.

  15. 15.

    opiejeanne

    @MisterForkbeard: All two of them.

    I really want to rant and roll around on the floor, foaming at the mouth today, but I’m too tired of being astonished that anyone could think this way. Any of these ways.

  16. 16.

    Jeffro

    “unbroken tradition of deference” – oh please.  Tell it to Mitch “Garland-nope!  Coney Barrett-yup!” McConnell.

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    I’m quite confused about trumpov & Co’s objections here:

    • if the January 6th insurrectionists were “patriots”…why would trumpov object to people knowing he/his team coordinated with (or even just talked with) them?
    • if it was a “spontaneous” 1st Amendment protected demonstration (and not an organized coup attempt) then surely there’s no ‘there’ there…nothing substantive to be published, nothing that will reflect badly on trumpov
    • if he’s worried about setting a precedent/protecting the Executive Branch…well, he should probably be reassured that this will only be applied to outgoing executives who incite an insurrection to stay in office after an election loss.
  20. 20.

    DFH

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):  Exactly what I thought.  Compare this response to that of the WH press corpse when only Boris took questions from the press, his UK press.  Uh, so it’s okay to be called “enemy of the people”???  Where was the complaining then?

  21. 21.

    Mike in NC

    No Executive Privilege for fascist traitors. Remember all that time Trump spent jerking off as “Executive Time”?

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    Executive privilege needs to be massively reined in more generally. I can understand screening some stuff in an attempt to let advisors be candid in a way they might not be if the public were looking over their figurative shoulders.  But that shouldn’t be an excuse for hiding everything forever.  If you’re so afraid of giving advice because you’re worried about how people will be thinking of you for giving it years from now, that’s probably a sign it’s bad advice.  There should be a reasonably short limit on the amount of time stuff can be concealed for that kind of reason, and it sure as hell shouldn’t apply after everyone is out of office.

  24. 24.

    Mike in NC

    OT but after a few hours on I-93 going into and out of Boston with my brother at the wheel, I need a good stiff drink. I forgot what a parking lot it becomes during rush hour.

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    Agree.  Dump the documents.  Don’t let the usual tools redact and lie about what is in them.  (See:  Barr, William.)

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    “There is an unbroken tradition of deference by the incumbent presidents to their predecessors,”

    What in the actual what is this garbage? Let’s go back, say, one administration and behold how Trump deferred to Obama on so many, many things.

    This motherfucker has testified before congress; he’s not qualified to run the fryer at a Burger King. “Rumors of hot oil being hot are unfounded.”

  27. 27.

    smith

    The thing about these restrictive “norms” that respectable media and Republican apologists (but I repeat myself) invoke whenever Dems try to govern:  If only half the players are expected to follow the “norms,” then there aren’t really any norms. What they are really trying to promote are privileges for Republicans and obligations for Democrats.​

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    Did anybody have “Russian shaman-scientist does California arson” on their 2021 bingo card?

    The Fawn Fire ignited around 4:45 p.m. Wednesday and was burning “heavy and dense timber,” in steep terrain with difficult access, Cal Fire said in a Thursday update.

    Cal Fire in a news release shortly after 1 p.m. announced the arrest of a 30-year-old Palo Alto woman on suspicion of arson.

    “The fire was located in a deep and remote canyon on property accessed through the JF Shea and Mountain Gate Quarries,” Cal Fire officials wrote.

    Employees in that area reported seeing a woman trespassing on quarry property and “acting irrationally.” Around 8 p.m., a woman “walked out of the brush near the fire line and approached firefighters stating she was dehydrated and needed medical treatment.”

    The woman, identified as Alexandra Andreevna Souverneva, was then interviewed by Cal Fire law enforcement officers. Investigators determined her as responsible for causing the fire, according to the news release.
    Souverneva was arrested and booked into the Shasta County jail and is being held on $100,000 bail.Cal Fire said it would recommend that the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office charge Souverneva with wildland arson, a charge that would include an enhancement due to California’s current state of emergency for wildfire danger.

    A LinkedIn profile for Souverneva — which displays her current title as “shaman” — says she received a bachelor’s degree from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech is considered by many to be the nation’s most prestigious STEM university. Her profile also lists her as a graduate student at State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

    Commencement programs confirm Souverneva graduated from Caltech with bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and biology in 2012, and a SUNY news release from 2016 listed her as a graduate student who contributed to algal bloom research.
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article254474218.html#storylink=cpy

  29. 29.

    rmjohnston

    @hueyplong:

    Legal privilege itself has a crime-fraud exception, as the weasel fascist apologist well knows.

    Not to mention that any advice Trump got was received in a well populated party bunker celebrating the ongoing events, where the party was videotaped and leaked. Even Turley knows that there’s no privilege of any kind for advice given in front of an audience of randos and memorialized on video.

  30. 30.

    kindness

    Jonathan Turley is a piece of shit that just won’t go down the drain.  He has shown himself (first with the penis hunt under President Clinton) that his legal opinions vary according to whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican.  Flush that asshole down the drain.

  31. 31.

    The Dangerman

    Unbroken tradition, Mr. Turkey? First, fuck off. Second, fuck off again. Third, well you get the idea.

  32. 32.

    Bill Arnold

    [GWU Professor Jonathan] Turley s

    Does he know how many Americans, some influential, know that he is a loathsome tool and despise him? I wonder how often he gets told this to his face. However often that is, he needs to hear it a lot more often.

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @burnspbesq:

    Put the docs on a server that any Anon can hack with one hand tied behind their back. Then wait.

    IMO, that would just invite a sideshow media firestorm about incompetence and criminally lax cybersecurity in the Biden Administration. I’d prefer to see the WH release the docs openly and deliberately. No sneakiness, no apologies.

  37. 37.

    Cacti

    Executive privilege belongs to the office of the Presidency, and we only have one of those at a time.

    Trump ain’t it anymore.

  39. 39.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Bill Arnold: During the (first) impeachment hearing, I had some reasonably well-informed friends tell me that “even some liberal legal scholars like this guy named Turley think that the Democrats jumped the gun and if they’d had better proof and cooperation from Republican witnesses, then Republicans might have voted for it.”

    That’s his function. He’s there to be a “liberal democratic scholar” who attacks Democrats. Sort of like how Greenwald functions, where he’s “liberal” but always thinks Trump is great and that Democrats are the real problem every single time.

  41. 41.

    Mike G

    Great, then there will be more evidence about the coup organizers for Garland’s sleepy DOJ to politely ignore while arresting more rednecks.

  42. 42.

    patrick II

    in the past, incumbent presidents would generally support their predecessors in restricting access, despite partisan differences.

    Turley

    In the past incumbent presidents would generally not have to deal with a criminal insurrectionist predecessor, despite the lamentations of partisan quisling supporters.

    patrick II

  43. 43.

    Wag

    @smith:

     What they are really trying to promote are privileges for Republicans and obligations for Democrats.​

    Exactly.  Those are the Beltway Norms that we must always support

  44. 44.

    Sure Lurkalot

    With all deference to Michelle Obama, I just don’t think going high is an option anymore. We have learned to our detriment that our government relied more on norms and traditions than we ever thought possible. It was easy peasy to violate them and then move on to rarely guarded laws like the Emoluments Clause and the Hatch Act and keep escalating from there all the way to premediated plans to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. We should worry about the fevered opinings of a hack like Jonathan Turley? Or a complicit media?

  45. 45.

    West of the Rockies

    I WANT CONSEQUENCES!  Indict Gaetz already.  Start trials on more insurrectionists.  Release Trump’s God damned taxes, indict TX AG Paxton, and release the 1/6 Trumpian evidence of crimes.

  51. 51.

    MomSense

    @germy:

    I really thing “the horse paste cured their COVID” needs to be a rotating tag line.  I meant it is just short hand for so much.

  53. 53.

    smith

    @Wag: ​
      No reason for Democrats to be bound by fake norms imposed by a complicit media. The Beltway Media exists solely to make life easier for the 1%. If we are willing to make the 1% uncomfortable (and Democratic tax policy says we are) then we should be willing to make the handmaidens of the 1% in the media uncomfortable.

  54. 54.

    SpaceUnit

    I can’t read anything Turley says without imagining him hunched over and rubbing his hands together, licking his lips and speaking like Gollum.  Yeah, I should probably see a therapist.

  59. 59.

    JWR

    @MisterForkbeard:

    “even some liberal legal scholars like this guy named Turley…”

    Yeah. Like the way the news dopes are always citing criticism of Democratic policies by fellow Democrats like Larry Summers. /hurl

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    @JWR: Larry Summers would just be another talking economist head if he had not been chosen Treasury Secretatary by a Democratic President. Damn a man who doesn’t ride for the brand!

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @SpaceUnit: I can’t read anything Turley says without imagining him hunched over and rubbing his hands together, licking his lips and speaking like Gollum.  Yeah, I should probably see a therapist.

    Definitely. He’s clearly more of a Grima Wormtongue type.

  64. 64.

    Ohio Mom

    @trollhattan: Not only has that “shaman” woman got the governmental authorities mad, every witch in the country has just put a hex on her. They are pagan earth worshippers after all, and they sure don’t like being maligned.

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    @West of the Rockies: thank you, 10000% agree

    I know Uncle Joe & Co have had a lot on their plate, but let’s get going here.  Especially with this damned Covid resurgence, people are not seeing results in almost any sphere of governance, nor reason to believe Dems are being effective/know how to fight.

    Just a couple heads on pikes, is all I’m asking.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    Truly horrifying how anti-abortion people always erase the woman. I don’t even think they’re aware that they do it- that’s how normalized erasing women in this country is:

    Asked by Curtis Jackson of Spectrum News 1 in Columbus, OH, whether a woman should be forced to give birth even if the pregnancy was the result of incest or rape, Vance replied that “the question betrays a certain presumption that’s wrong.”
    “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term; it’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society,” said Vance, who lags behind several Republican candidates in his Ohio primary. “The question to me is really about the baby. We want women to have opportunities, we want women to have choices, but, above all, we want women and young boys in the womb to have a right to life.”

    She disappeared halfway thru the first sentence, never to appear again.
    Ask yourself if you want these people in charge of pregnant women’s health care. They will absolutely and always sacrifice the mother. They don’t even recognize she exists.
    In the case of incest, Vance is speaking here not even of women but of girls. He’d force a 12 year old to carry to term so she can serve “society”.
    The public polling approval of the new anti-abortion laws is dropping. I wonder if it’s because we’re finally hearing what the anti-abortion people really think. They can’t paper this over with the weepy Hallmark card blather about mommies and babies. You hear the authoritarian grounding of it, it’s harshness and mean spiritedness, how they can’t wait to punish women.

  68. 68.

    JoyceH

    @MisterForkbeard: ​
     

    Also, speaking of document dumps the Cyber Ninjas are going to finally ‘present’ their Arizona Fraudit findings. On a Friday afternoon. After hinting that they couldn’t find anything. Nice.

    Frankly, I’m astonished. I genuinely believed, when it was announced that the report would be delayed because the Cyber Ninjas had COVID, that we would never hear from them again. I thought they were going to melt away and never be seen again, like those Heist movies where the mark goes back to the bustling office where he’d made the deal and finds only an empty echoing space.

  70. 70.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    They constantly erase women and yet these forced birth assholes DO NOT want anything to do with the baby once it is born.  They don’t care if it has shelter, food, clothing, a living mom, a caregiver, school, etc.  Once it is born they don’t care if it lives or dies.

  74. 74.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: he’s a psycho, full stop.  Whether latent or through exposure to the RWNJs, it doesn’t matter.

    They always have double/triple down on their extreme positions in order to try and remain “consistent”.  Vance wants the 12-year-old to carry to term because well…exceptions would mean that exceptions were possible, almost as if we (society) were determining the rules here, instead of something divinely dropped from heaven.

    It’s the same with that Florida state rep or whatever.  He realizes that trying to ban Covid-19 vaccinations for school kids (once they’re approved by the FDA or whatever) won’t be tenable, since they already have over a half-dozen required vaccinations.  So he wants to…take a look at those half-dozen required vaccinations.  It’s not that he’s way out on a limb opposing Covid-19 vaccinations; no, it’s that really, all of them might need to be reconsidered.  Otherwise, he’d look like the know-nothing demagogue that he is.

    Same with Vance.  It’s not him getting raped, after all; it’s not HIS 12-year-old.  So you know, it’s just “inconvenient”.

  76. 76.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    WaPo via Betty Cracker @ Top:

    “There is an unbroken tradition of deference by the incumbent presidents to their predecessors,” [GWU Professor Jonathan] Turley said.

    Perhaps Turley should ask Clinton, Bush fils, and Obama about the deference and respect shown to them by Trump.

  80. 80.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    Seriously, “women and young boys”? Not young girls? Could he be trying to turn women into nothing more than baby-making apparatuses? And when is someone going to demand an explanation why men are never prosecutable in these proposals?

  81. 81.

    debbie

    @JWR:

    I heard reporting* that there have been more than 4,000 incidents of unruly airline passengers since the beginning of the pandemic. Yikes!

    (BBC/The World)

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @WaterGirl: ​
     

    Can they be arrested or held in contempt and sit in jail until they testify?

    Bingo. It is what the previous DOJ would not do.

  83. 83.

    pajaro

    @Kay:

    I’m pretty sure Vance knows what he is doing.  I don’t believe this is about ideology or confiction.    Vance, a former anti-Trumper, has absolutely sold his soul to attempt to outflank Josh Mandel on the right, something that is really hard to do.  He’s been given a pile of money for his campaign, and he’s doing what he thinks he needs to do to win.

  84. 84.

    laura

    @Kay: Well gee Kay, they’ve managed to disappear the men from the unwanted pregnancy since the inception of the war against women and their rights and yet that never, ever, ever gets mentioned. So, disappearing the women is part and parcel of the fetus fetishization.

    That JD Vance can take a running jump up his ass.

  85. 85.

    pajaro

    @Kay:

    I’m pretty sure Vance knows what he is doing.  I don’t believe this is about ideology or confiction.    Vance, a former anti-Trumper, has absolutely sold his soul to attempt to outflank Josh Mandel on the right, something that is really hard to do.  He’s been given a pile of money for his campaign, and he’s doing what he thinks he needs to do to win.

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    They do it in the actual state statutes too. I suppose they think it insulates them from the charge of controlling women, but for me reading it has the opposite effect- it removes all agency and decision making from women at all. They’re just…missing. Absolutely bizarre but apparently just fine in the United States because no one ever mentions how weird it is to draft a state law where this sort of essential party doesn’t exist.

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