Former President Donald Trump on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to block the National Archives from turning over records from his time in the White House to the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Lower court rulings directing the National Archives to hand the material over to Congress were wrong, his lawyers said in their appeal.
"The decisions below effectively gut the ability of former presidents to maintain executive privilege over the objection of an incumbent, who is often, as is the case here, a political rival," they said.
The House committee is asking for a trove of documents related to the events surrounding the riot, including records of communication between the White House and the Justice Department leading up to Jan. 6. Trump objected, asserting executive privilege, but President Joe Biden declined to back up that assertion. Instead, he directed National Archives to hand over the material.