As House investigators move closer to obtaining Donald Trump’s White House January 6 records, the former president is asking the Supreme Court in a new filing to read a Washington Post interview with the chairman of the House Select Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) arguing that the court should block the Committee over Tompson’s comments.
The move comes as the nation’s highest court considers whether to take up Donald Trump’s January 6 White House records case.
During The Post interview, Thompson said the committee’s investigation into Trump’s delay in calling for his supporters to end their rioting at the US Capitol could lead to a criminal referral to the Justice Department, CNN reported.
“That dereliction of duty causes us real concern,” Thompson told the Post, according to CNN. “And one of those concerns is that whether or not it was intentional, and whether or not that lack of attention for that longer period of time, would warrant a referral.”
Incredibly, Trump seems to believe the comments could help him and ordered his lawyers to tell the justices that Thompson’s remarks back one of his case’s key allegations: that the effort to obtain his White House records lacks a legitimate legislative purpose and therefore should be blocked.
“The Committee cannot make a mockery of Congress’s constitutional mandate that its requests and investigation be supported by a ‘valid legislative purpose,'” Trump’s lawyers wrote, CNN reported “It cannot embark on what is essentially a law enforcement investigation with the excuse that it might legislate based on information it turns up in the course of the exploration.”
The Supreme Court has not indicated how it intends to move forward with Trump’s request to take up his case.
