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1 1 (September 20, 2021)

handle is hein.crs/goveens0001 and id is 1 raw text is: S\Congressional ______ SResearch Service Executive Privilege and Former Presidents: Constitutional Principles and Current Application September 20, 2021 A number of congressional committees, including the newly created House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Select Committee), are currently investigating issues associated with the events of January 6, 2021. The Select Committee, which has suggested that it will conduct an inquiry that includes scrutinizing the actions of then-President Donald Trump, recently announced it was seeking a variety of relevant documents from the National Archives and Records Administration (National Archives) and other executive branch agencies. These initial requests included demands for Trump Administration documents, including communications within and among the White House and Executive Branch agencies during the leadup to January 6th and on that day. Signaling a possible legal confrontation, former President Trump responded to that announcement by asserting that the Select Committee's requests were being performed at the expense of long-standing legal principles of privilege, and that Executive privilege will be defended. This apparently brewing dispute over congressional access to evidence of former President Trump's actions and direct communications appears to implicate the presidential communications privilege, a particular component of what is often referred to as executive privilege. As a result, the Select Committee's investigation is likely to raise both constitutional questions of a former President's authority to use executive privilege to shield from Congress communications he made while in office, and statutory questions arising from the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and its treatment of congressional access to presidential records possessed by the National Archives. This Sidebar addresses the general legal principles governing these questions. It provides an overview of executive privilege and its application to claims by former Presidents in the context of a congressional investigation. It also highlights the significant weight given to the views of the incumbent President by courts when they consider privilege claims raised by a former President. A companion Sidebar addresses the treatment of executive privilege claims by a former President under the PRA and outlines judicial and legal considerations specific to the January 6 investigations. Ultimately, and as discussed in both Sidebars, it appears that an important factor in how this dispute unfolds is likely to be whether the current President supports the former President's potential privilege claim. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports. congress.gov LSB10642 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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