Joe Biden rejects Donald Trump's executive privilege claim over White House visitor logs

US President Joe Biden previously rejected any claims of executive privilege made by his immediate predecessor Donald Trump over his White House records. As the former president seeks to keep more records of his White House hidden, Biden rejected his privilege claims again, this time in authorizing the release of White House visitor logs during his term.

Biden has rejected his predecessor’s claims of executive privilege over his White House visitor logs, according to the New York Times. The US leader has now authorized the National Archives to turn over Trump White House visitor logs to the congressional committee probing Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the Capitol insurrection.

The newspaper cited the letter to the National Archives by Biden’s White House counsel Dana Remus, ordering the Archives to turn over the visitor logs to the committee within 15 days. Biden cited the urgency of the committee’s work in piecing together the events that took place before, during, and even after the insurrection.

This marks another blow to Trump, whose appeal to claim executive privilege on troves of documents and records was rejected by the Supreme Court almost unanimously. It remains to be seen what the visitor logs will show as well as how extensive and complete the logs will be. The committee has since made significant progress in its investigation, interviewing hundreds of witnesses and looking through thousands of pages of records.

In other related news, Biden appealed for diplomacy in his speech this week regarding the tensions with Russia over Ukraine. Biden along with other world leaders, have repeatedly warned Russian President Vladimir Putin of the sanctions that will be imposed should his troops make an incursion into Ukraine.

Biden also previously warned that American citizens in Ukraine leave immediately as an invasion may happen at any time. In his remarks, Biden said to Russian citizens that the US and its allies are not a threat to them and that there is a lot of room for diplomacy to avoid any military conflict in Europe.

The US leader noted that he does not believe Russian citizens want any military conflict with Ukraine, and the human cost from a possible conflict would be devastating.

“If Russia attacks Ukraine, it will be met with overwhelming international condemnation,” warned Biden.