Tear gas is released into a crowd of protesters, with one wielding a Confederate battle flag that reads “Come and Take It,” during clashes with Capitol police at a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday asked a federal appeals court to temporarily halt the release of White House records to lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol invasion, just one day before those records are set to be delivered.
The request for a “brief” administrative injunction marks the latest step in Trump’s efforts to stop the National Archives from handing reams of documents over to the House select committee probing the deadly attack.
U.S. Archivist David Ferriero is scheduled to produce a tranche of those documents by Friday at 6 p.m. ET, Trump’s lawyer told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The lawyer is asking the D.C. circuit to block the records from being released while the court considers another injunction on a fast-track basis.
The House committee and the National Archives do not oppose the administrative injunction request, Trump’s lawyer, Jesse Binnall, told the appeals court.
The emergency request to the appeals court came after federal Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected multiple attempts by Trump’s lawyer to freeze the transfer of records to the Jan. 6 panel.
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