Score one for congressional oversight as former President Donald Trump loses yet another legal fight to keep records hidden from investigators on the Jan. 6 Committee.

First reported by Politico, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued the order swatting Trump’s latest request down late Wednesday. It is the third time in less than a week she has done so as the former commander-in-chief has tied himself in knots to shroud hundreds upon hundreds of pages of records that lawmakers say are integral to understanding the Capitol attack and, further, to prevent it from ever happening again.

National Archivist David Ferriero will begin turning documents over to the committee this Friday, barring any intervention from the courts. President Joe Biden has not claimed executive privilege over the documents, and following Chutkan’s latest refusal, Trump has already appealed. 

Thursday, Nov 11, 2021 · 5:11:57 PM +00:00 · Brandi Buchman

Former President Donald Trump’s attorney Jesse Binnall filed an appeal Thursday to keep the Jan. 6th Committee’s prying eyes from documents lawmakers maintain are integral to their probe. 

With the National Archives prepared to turn over the records by Friday at 6 p.m., the appeal is Trump’s last resort. 

Asking for a “brief pause in the production” of records, Trump argues, again, that the records request is overly broad and are “untethererd from any legitimate legislative purpose.” 

“Absent immediate relief, President Trump risks imminently losing his opportunity to obtain any meaningful remedy and the case could be mooted,” Binnall writes. 

Before Wednesday night’s ruling, Trump’s attorney Jesse Binnall had requested an injunction to keep records—such as White House correspondence strategizing how to overturn the 2020 election results, for example—away from the committee. Binnall cited confidentiality concerns and claims of executive privilege.

Surreally, Binnall also asked Chutkan to issue a stay of her ruling before she had even rendered it.

She would not.

On Tuesday, Chutkan dressed Trump, now a year removed from his defeat in 2020, down. Writing in a 39-page opinion, Chutkin admonished the former president for his plain failure to “acknowledge the deference owed to the incumbent President’s judgment” and his insistent “notion that his executive power exists in perpetuity.”

“But presidents are not kings and plaintiff is not president. He retains the right to assert that his records are privileged but the incumbent president is not constitutionally obligated to honor that assertion,” Chutkan wrote.

Binnall filed Trump’s appeal just an hour after Chutkan ruled on Tuesday. 

In Wednesday’s ruling against the temporary order request to bar documents from disclosure, Chutkan bristled: “This court will not effectively ignore its own reasoning in denying relief in the first place to grant injunctive relief now.”

She added, as well, that there is no “end-run around preliminary injunction” simply because Trump seeks appellate review.

“Were the court to grant the plaintiff’s motion, the effect would be to give the plaintiff the fruits of victory whether or not the appeal has merit. Plaintiff is not entitled to injunctive relief simply because the procedural posture of this case has shifted,” Wednesday’s six-page ruling states.

She continued: “But while Nov. 12 draws near, this court’s jurisdiction is not imperiled. Plaintiff has already filed a notice of appeal with the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He is, therefore, free to petition that court for relief.”

According to the National Archives, documents sought by the committee were broken up into four tranches. The first tranche—anticipated for release Friday—will likely include call logs, White House visitor logs, and files held by Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

That batch is not expected to exceed 100 pages.

The second and third tranche is due to the committee by Nov. 26, barring a judge’s order to stop the hand-off. According to court records, that batch could include up to 724 pages. The fourth tranche spans 551 pages and the review period is still ongoing, so a deadline has not yet been set.

“[The National Archives] anticipates that it will identify additional tranches of responsive records on a rolling basis,” Judge Chutkan wrote on Nov. 9.

Records are expected to include, among other things, daily presidential diaries, schedules, White House visitor logs, drafts of presidential speeches and remarks, and other correspondence related explicitly to Jan. 6.

The Jan. 6 Committee has so far issued nearly three dozen subpoenas. As the anniversary of the insurrection fast approaches, anticipation for public hearings with key figures from the Trump administration are hotly anticipated.

Select committee spokesperson Tim Mulvey told Daily Kos in an email Thursday: “At this stage in the investigation, the Select Committee is gathering facts, reviewing materials, and hearing from witnesses to build a body of evidence. A major aim of the Select Committee’s work, however, is to provide answers to the American people about the violence of Jan. 6 and its causes. We intend to tell this story through hearings and other public events when the time is right.”