February 16, 2022

Biden Rejects Trump’s Executive Privilege Claim and Orders Release of White House Logs

Joshua Roberts/ZUMA

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President Biden has shot down Donald Trump’s claim of executive privilege over White House visitor logs from January 6, a critical win for the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol. 

“The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records,” White House counsel Dana Remus wrote in a letter addressed to the National Archives. “The records in question are entries in visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on January 6, 2021.”

The National Archives now has 15 days to turn over the documents, which could potentially fill in the gaps of who Trump may have spoken to as the attack unfolded.

Biden’s decision on Tuesday, the latest blow to Trump’s efforts to stall the committee from obtaining the visitor logs, comes amid renewed allegations that the former president routinely violated presidential record-keeping rules, by either improperly storing documents in boxes at Mar-a-Lago or flushing papers down the toilet. (Trump has denied clogging the White House toilet.)

Trump has long held a broad and rather loose approach to executive privilege, invoking the power throughout his impeachment proceedings in order to routinely block testimony from members of his administration. Which all begs the question of what exactly Trump is so frequently hoping to hide from the public.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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