Joe Biden opens White House logs to Capitol Hill investigation

Joe Biden has ordered the ­release of White House visitor logs to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.

Donald Trump has sued to block the release of White House records relating to January 6 last year. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden has ordered the ­release of White House visitor logs to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, rejecting Donald Trump’s attempt to keep them secret.

The move follows the release to the committee last month of about 700 pages of records and communications from the Trump administration after a legal struggle that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

In a letter to the National ­Archives, White House counsel Dana Remus said the US President had decided Mr Trump’s claim of executive privilege “is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified”. Ms Remus said that “in light of the urgency” of the committee’s work, the logs should be ­released within a fortnight.

“Congress has a compelling need” for the latest records, as it continues to investigate allegations that Trump incited the riot by his supporters at the US Capitol on January 6 and then ­refused to act for several hours as the violence escalated. Ms Remus said that “constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from congress or the public, ­information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself”.

It is still unclear what the visitor logs might reveal or whether Mr Trump will take legal action to block the latest move. The former president has used every tool at his disposal to delay the investigation’s work as it has closed in on him and his inner circle over recent weeks.

He sued to block the release of White House records relating to January 6 and its aftermath last year, eventually appealing to the Supreme Court, where his case was dismissed last month.

The White House records were finally released after the Supreme Court ruling though it later emerged that several pages had been ripped up by Mr Trump. In the days since, boxes of White House records, some alleged to contain classified ­material, have been unearthed at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago.

There have been claims that Mr Trump routinely tore up ­papers while in office and ­attempted to flush some down a White House toilet. The former president has denied the claims.

In her letter, Ms Remus said the documents required “are ­entries in visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on Jan 6, 2021”.

The investigating committee is seeking to build a picture of Mr Trump’s actions on the day of the riot and of who visited the White House. Testimony from witnesses has suggested that Mr Trump resisted pleas from close aides and family members to ­intervene and call off the rioters.

Mr Biden and Barack Obama made their visitor logs public, to give the public a clearer idea of who has access to senior officials in the White House.

The Times