| Former president Donald Trump is trying to do something without modern precedent: use executive privilege — even though he's no longer president — to stop Congress from investigating him. Specifically, he's trying to stop a special, bipartisan committee in Congress from investigating his role in fomenting the political violence of Jan. 6. Trump is putting up a fight that could test the limits of current presidential power vs. a former president's rights. Here's more on what's going on. What is executive privilege: It's a loose legal protection for the president and top White House aides, designed to give them confidentiality as they make tough decisions while governing. Ultimately, it's not up to Trump whether White House records go to Congress. It's up to the Biden administration, since President Biden is currently in charge of the federal agencies that have the records. (The National Archives holds onto them after a president leaves office.) And Biden has approved the release of Trump's information, despite the former president's request for executive privilege to be extended. Generally, presidents tend to err on the side of protecting the presidency over Congress, but Biden said he felt like Jan. 6 was worth looking into.  The National Archives houses records from Trump's administration that Congress wants. (Jonathan Newton /The Washington Post) | Trump sues: As is his right under the Presidential Records Act, which allows him to evaluate that material and say whether he thinks it is privileged information, Trump sued to block the release of records. Trump argues that what the committee is seeking is too broad and intrusive. Trump sued Congress a lot when he was in office, and he lost a number of those battles. But the courts did narrow what documents Congress could get. This case could go all the way to the Supreme Court, which would have to decide whether Biden or Trump have more say in releasing documents related to Trump's time in the White House. Trump's ultimate success might be in delaying the committee's investigation. The committee doesn't have a lot of time. If Republicans take control of the House of Representatives after the November 2022 midterm elections, they could sideline or even end the committee. In the past, similar legal battles have stretched out for years. This is not Trump's only legal vulnerability  Trump Tower in New York. | Now that he's out of office, the former president is tied up in a ton of lawsuits. And seemingly off-the-radar lawsuits can lead to big legal exposure for the president. Like on Monday, when Trump sat with lawyers for four hours and gave a deposition. The deposition was related to a lawsuit by protesters who say they were assaulted by his guards outside Trump Tower in 2015. Other big legal problems for Trump include: - Prosecutors in New York are looking into whether he exaggerated his land value to get tax breaks and his assets to mislead lenders for his properties. Through this, they've managed to get some of his tax records that Trump has fought hard to keep private.
- A federal prosecutor in Georgia has a criminal probe going into his efforts to overturn that state's 2020 election results. A D.C. prosecutor is looking at whether he incited violence on Jan. 6.
- And he's fighting defamation lawsuits from two women who say he sexually assaulted them, and at least one case could force him to be deposed later this year.
In March, my Washington Post colleagues found at least six ongoing investigations that could involve Trump, and at least 29 lawsuits in which he or one of his companies is named as a defendant. They write: "The sheer volume of these legal problems indicates that — after a moment of maximum invincibility in the White House — Trump has fallen to a point of historic vulnerability before the law." Why Democrats are in such a rush to get legislation passed Listen closely, and you'll start to hear congressional Democratic leaders and President Biden sounding more impatient about two big bills stuck in a Democratic-majority Congress: - A bipartisan infrastructure bill
- A big, social-safety net/climate change legislation package that Democrats are trying to pass with their own votes
What's the rush? A few reasons: On Halloween, a bunch of transportation programs will expire. That bipartisan infrastructure bill, which already passed the Senate but is being held up by liberals in the House, needs to get passed before federal employees who work in transportation could get furloughed. In addition to being a bummer for those workers, that would be a bad look for Democrats trying to project competence in governing. Congress still has some major fiscal issues to deal with. In December, Democrats in Congress have to figure out a way to pass another spending bill to keep the government open and raise the debt ceiling over Republican objections. Lawmakers fear that voters are running out of patience with them the longer negotiations go on. "People are at risk of losing faith in government," Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a potentially vulnerable member of Congress, told Politico. Two widely respected Democratic strategists recently wrote: "In 2020, Democrats won on a pledge of calm, capable leadership. That's going to ring hollow if we can't cut a deal inside our own party on two huge measures." The midterm elections are almost here. At least when calculated in Congress-years. Control of Congress could flip from Democrats to Republicans in both chambers in November 2022 midterm elections. That's more than a year away, but by the start of 2022, lawmakers start battening down the hatches to get in campaign mode. And that makes significant dealmaking significantly less likely. | 
Email 
