The National Archives decided on Tuesday that it will turn over former Vice President Mike Pence’s records to the House Select Committee early next month, after former President Donald Trump said he wanted to keep secret more than 100 documents.
This is the first set of records related to Pence’s office that the Archives has cleared for release after House investigators sought them and comes as top officials around Pence on January 6 testify to the panel.
The Archives released letters with Trump and the Biden White House on Wednesday, explaining their positions and decisions on this set of records. The letters reveal tension over what may be key communications about January 6 and Pence overseeing the Electoral College certification in Congress, which Trump wanted to stop.
Trump still has the ability to go to court to try to stop the production, though he lost his previous attempt to keep White House records secret at the Supreme Court.
The Biden White House, in its letter declining to assert executive privilege over these records, noted that the presidency may have even less authority to protect vice presidential communications, compared to White House records.
“Many of the records as to which the former President has made a claim of privilege in this set of documents, however, were communications concerning the former Vice President’s responsibilities as President of the Senate in certifying the vote of presidential electors on January 6, 2021,” Dana Remus, Biden’s White House counsel, wrote.
“Although those records qualify as Vice-Presidential records under the Presidential Records Act and therefore and are subject to the provisions of the Act concerning exceptions to restricted access, they are not subject to claims of the presidential communications privilege,” Remus wrote.
“In any event, to the extent any of the documents in question could be subject to a claim of executive privilege of any sort, including by the former President, President Biden has determined that an assertion of such a privilege is not justified and is not in the best interests of the United States,” Remus wrote.
The Archives says it is immediately turning over vice presidential records to the committee that Trump doesn’t contest.
