“The former president’s clear objective is to stop the select committee from getting to the facts about Jan. 6, and his lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to delay and obstruct our probe,” Mr. Thompson and Ms. Cheney wrote in response to Mr. Trump’s suit. “Precedent and law are on our side.”
Claims of executive privilege date back to the very first congressional investigation, in George Washington’s administration, said Douglas L. Kriner, a professor of government at Cornell University and author of the book “Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power.”
However, Mr. Bannon’s situation is different from many previous cases in which the privilege was invoked.
“It’s hard to imagine how this jeopardizes national security,” Mr. Kriner said of releasing documents from the Trump administration. “It doesn’t involve a current ongoing administration that might be harmed in any way, and it doesn’t even involve the right to frank and open conversation between the president and other advisers within the administration.”
The committee vote comes as some Senate Republicans are holding up the confirmation of Mr. Biden’s nominee for the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., who would oversee charges against defendants related to the Jan. 6 attack, including any potential charges against Mr. Bannon.
Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, has put a hold on the nomination of Matthew M. Graves to lead the office, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.
Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting delegate, said she was confident Mr. Graves would eventually win approval, but that his nomination had become mired in Republican hostility around the effort to investigate the Capitol riot.
