US President Joe Biden's administration has blocked his predecessor Donald Trump's request to withhold documents pertaining to the January 6 riots at the US Capitol complex from a congressional investigative committee, White House said on Friday (local time).
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the administration would back the committee's sweeping efforts.
"As a part of this process, the president has determined an assertion of executive privilege is not warranted for the first set of documents from the Trump White House that have been provided to us by the National Archives," Psaki said during a press briefing, The Hill reported.
"This is just the first set of documents, and we will evaluate claims of privilege on a case by case basis, but the president has also been clear he believes it to be of the utmost importance for both Congress and the American people to have a complete understanding of the events of that day to prevent them from happening again."
Psaki emphasised that the tranche of documents released to the committee is only the first and that the White House would evaluate further requests on a case-by-case basis.
She also declined to offer specific details on the documents themselves, saying only that they are Trump-era White House records responsive to the January 6 select committee's request to the National Archives, according to The Hill.
Reacting to this, Trump said that documents related to Trump's communications and actions on January 6, approved by the Biden administration, are not based on law or reality.
"The Radical Left Democrats tried the Russia Witch Hunt, they tried the fake impeachments, and now they are trying once again to use Congress to persecute their political opponents. Their requests are not based in law or reality - it's just a game to these politicians. They don't care about our country or the American people," Sputnik citing Trump's statement.
On January 6, a group of supporters of former President Donald Trump entered the US Capitol in a bid to protest the lawmakers certifying the 2020 election results from several states that Trump said were fraudulent. One protester was shot dead during the incident and the law enforcement authorities charged 500 people for participating in the event.
( With inputs from ANI )
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