Supreme Court rejects Trump’s attempt to shield documents from Jan. 6th committee

The Supreme Court rejected former President Trump’s attempt to withhold documents from the January 6th House committee. The ruling came on Wednesday in an unsigned, one-paragraph order.

According to The Hill, Justice Clarence Thomas was the only one to indicate he would have granted Trump’s request. However, the ruling will now allow congressional investigators to receive the Trump administration’s schedules, call logs, emails, and other requested documents that could highlight what occurred on January 6th and Capitol Hill.

The committee began receiving records just hours after the ruling. Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) released a joint statement saying, “Our work goes forward to uncover all the facts about the violence of January 6th and its causes.” The two called the ruling “a victory for the rule of law and American democracy.”

Justices wrote, “Because the Court of Appeals concluded that President Trump’s claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former President necessarily made no difference to the court’s decision.”

Justice Thomas was the lone dissenter, and did not elaborate on the source of his disagreement. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who agreed with the majority ruling, wrote separately to note where he disagreed, which was with the lower appeals court’s reasoning and its potential legal weight.