Joe "stick it to the Mullahs" Chad Biden https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/us/politics/biden-sept-11.html Biden Moves to Declassify Some Documents Related to Sept. 11 In an executive order, the president instructed Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to publicly release the declassified documents over the next six months WASHINGTON — Making good on a campaign promise, President Biden directed the Justice Department and other federal agencies on Friday to oversee the review and declassification of documents related to the F.B.I.’s investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In an executive order, Mr. Biden instructed Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to publicly release the declassified documents over the next six months. “When I ran for president, I made a commitment to ensuring transparency regarding the declassification of documents on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America,” Mr. Biden said in a statement released before the 20th anniversary of the attacks next week. “We must never forget the enduring pain of the families and loved ones of the 2,977 innocent people who were killed during the worst terrorist attack on America in our history.” For years, families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks have pushed the federal government to reveal more information about any Saudi involvement in financing the attacks. In 2019, William P. Barr, then the attorney general under President Donald J. Trump, declared in a statement to a federal court that documents related to the attacks should stay classified to protect national security. The move stunned the families. As a candidate, Mr. Biden pledged last year to “err on the side of disclosure in cases where, as here, the events in question occurred two decades or longer ago.” It is not clear what documents the Justice Department will release when its review is complete. But the announcement was immediately hailed by some family members who have escalated pressure on Mr. Biden to act. Last month, a group of close to 1,800 people affected by the attack, including survivors, emergency medical workers and family members of victims, told the president to skip the memorial event this year at ground zero if he did not start the process of reviewing the documents for possible declassification and release. “We are thrilled to see the president forcing the release of more evidence about Saudi connections to the 9/11 attacks,” Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom Strada, was killed in the World Trade Center, said in a statement on Friday. “We have been fighting the F.B.I. and intelligence community for too long, but this looks like a true turning point.” Some family members think that the documents could detail connections between the Saudi government and the hijackers who carried out the attacks. The 9/11 Commission, which released its final report in 2004, found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” Al Qaeda, which carried out the attacks. But that phrasing left some to speculate that there might be evidence of involvement by other, lower-ranking officials.
such a revolutionary... Joe "king slayer" Biden, long may he reign. Keep crop dusting the crown Joe, do it for the people.
WASHINGTON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden has rejected former President Donald Trump's executive privilege claims and ordered White House visitor logs to be released to the panel investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack, according to a letter released on Wednesday. In a letter to the National Archives, Biden's White House counsel granted congressional investigators access to the data given the urgency of their work probing Trump supporters' violent siege at the U.S. Capitol last year, and ordered the agency to turn over the logs within 15 days. "The President has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records," Biden counsel Dana Remus wrote in the letter dated Feb. 15. Representatives for Trump, a Republican, did not respond to a request for comment. Biden, a Democrat, last year also rejected Trump's bid to block the U.S. House of Representatives Jan. 6 committee from accessing batches of documents from the former president's time at the White House. Federal courts also rejected Trump's lawsuit seeking to withhold the records. Remus in the letter said the logs of those who visited the White House before Trump left on Jan. 20, 2021, should be handed over quickly "in light of the urgency" of the committee's work and Congress' "compelling need." "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," Remus wrote. Representatives for the White House did not respond to a request for any additional comment beyond the letter. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told Trump in a letter on Wednesday that unless a court intervenes it would turn over the logs on March 3, the same day it is scheduled to provide former Vice President Mike Pence's records. Separately on Wednesday, the founder of a right-wing militia group charged with seditious conspiracy over his alleged role in organizing the Jan. 6 attack is set to appear in court, seeking to be released from jail while he awaits trial. [nL1N2UQ1J3] So far, more than 725 people have been charged with playing a role in the attack that left five people dead and more than 100 police officers injured. Another four police officers involved in defending the Capitol later committed suicide. The Jan. 6 committee has made 81 subpoenas public, including those issued to top Trump aides and allies, and interviewed more than 560 witnesses. It has also sought records from social media and other telecommunications firms. On Tuesday, it subpoenaed six people who had knowledge of or participated in unsuccessful efforts to send false "alternate electors" to Washington for Trump in the 2020 presidential election. read more Trump has repeatedly blasted the committee's investigation and decried the November 2020 election, which he lost to Biden by more than 7 million ballots and by 74 votes in the Electoral College. Trump, who has teased a potential presidential run in 2024 but not formally declared his candidacy, could again file suit seeking to block the release of the visitor logs, which he sought to block in a Jan. 31 letter to the Archives. The U.S. Supreme Court last month, however, rejectedTrump's early attempt to withhold documents in a near-unanimous decision, with only one of the top court's nine justices objecting.