Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at the House select committee investigating the January 6th attack on the US Capitol over reports that the committee is seeking documents about his mental health and whether he was considering using the military to remain in power.
The investigative panel is zeroing in on the period from Election Day to Inauguration Day and wants agencies to turn over “all documents and communications relating to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” which allows the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members to remove the president if they believe he is unfit for office.
In response, Trump released an angry statement attacking the committee members as “lefties” and calling the commission a “pathetic” example of “political theater.”
Trump also vowed to not cooperate with the committee’s requests.
“Unfortunately, this partisan exercise is being performed at the expense of long-standing legal principles of privilege,” Trump wrote. “Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my Administration and the Patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our Nation.”
The documents, if provided, could offer new insight into whether former Vice President Pence and Trump’s Cabinet members were considering taking action following numerous reports that administration officials were considering invoking the 25th Amendment during Trump’s last two weeks in office.
But the request to DOJ goes beyond that, requesting information from several officials who threatened to resign as Trump weighed replacing Rosen and asking for information on whether “any other DOJ official” was involved in “challenging the validity of the 2020 election.”
Read Trump’s statement below.
INBOX: He’s afraid. pic.twitter.com/NJR1szVLML
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) August 26, 2021
