(Washington) His status as former US president does not change anything: Donald Trump fails to dismiss the threat of a parliamentary commission charged with investigating his role in the assault led by his supporters against the Capitol.
In the name of “the public’s interest” in understanding “the events leading up to January 6,” a federal judge on Tuesday evening authorized the transfer to Congress of 770 pages of documents relating to her actions on the day of the attack.
Donald Trump, who denies any responsibility for the coup, had nevertheless invoked the right of the executive to keep certain information secret to block the disclosure of the minutes of his meetings or the list of his phone calls.
“Presidents are not kings and the plaintiff is not president,” Magistrate Tanya Chutkan retorted sharply in her ruling.
PHOTO ANDREW HARNIK, AP
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Senior White House Advisor Stephen Miller, on October 20, 2020, The Capitol Assault Inquiry Committee subpoenaed them.
Lawyers for the Republican billionaire intend to appeal before Friday’s deadline for submitting the documents to Congress. “President Trump remains determined to defend the Constitution and the presidential office,” tweeted one of his spokespersons, Taylor Budowich.
But the judgment represents an important victory in the race against time initiated by the special committee of the House of Representatives.
Its president, the elected Democrat Bennie Thompson, has also welcomed a decision which rejects “a complaint intended only to delay and hinder our investigation”.
“Trump’s Orbit”
Composed in large majority of elected Democrats, the commission seeks to publish its conclusions before the midterm elections, in a year. The Republicans are indeed well placed to regain control of the lower house during this election, which would allow them to bury its work.
With this deadline in mind, the commission is moving forward. On Monday and Tuesday, she launched new rounds of subpoenas against relatives of the former president, including his former White House spokesman Kayleigh McEnany or his advisor Stephen Miller.
PHOTO BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Former White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany.
So far the former advisers of Donald Trump have not responded to the summons. Steve Bannon, considered one of the architects of his victory in 2016, even “refused to cooperate”, so that the commission launched a lawsuit against him for “obstructing the work of Congress”.
It is now up to Justice Minister Merrick Garland to decide whether he should be formally charged. Such a move is sure to be criticized on the right, but could convince reluctant witnesses to run for Congress.
Without waiting, the commission has already interviewed more than 150 people, according to Liz Cheney, one of the few Republican elected officials very critical of Donald Trump who has agreed to sit on it.
The investigations “have already given rise to a larger and sharper picture of those in the government and in Trump’s orbit who participated in the planning of the January 6 riots,” said David Greenberg, professor of history at the Rutgers University in New Jersey.
For him, the political impact of the investigation is, at this stage, impossible to guess, but the stakes are elsewhere. “It’s impossible to say what will happen to Donald Trump,” he told AFP. “Learning what really happened is the key. ”
Tried for incitement
On January 6, thousands of Donald Trump supporters gathered in Washington as Congress certified the victory of Democratic rival Joe Biden in the November 2020 presidential election.
The former real estate mogul had addressed the crowd, hammering, baselessly, that the election had been “stolen” from him. Several hundred demonstrators then launched an assault on the temple of American democracy, sowing chaos and violence even in the hemicycle.
The images shocked the whole world and, at first, elected officials from both parties strongly condemned this assault.
But, the former president, still very popular among part of the population, quickly reaffirmed his hold on the party, which allowed him to be acquitted in February after a trial in Congress. for “incitement to insurrection”.
The hearings carried out by various parliamentary committees then focused on the flaws of the intelligence services and the police.