One of the saddest issues about Donald Trump’s continued try to dam Congress from acquiring data detailing precisely what he was doing earlier than, throughout, and after the January 6 Capitol assault is his continued insistence that he is able to exert “government privilege” over the data, given that he’s very a lot not the chief government of the United States, a truth varied officers have tried to get by his extraordinarily thick head to no avail. One of the funniest? That he’s claiming his combat to stop the launch of the data is solely altruistic, and that he’s waging it not for himself however with the intention to defend future presidents.

In court docket on Tuesday, the ex-president’s attorneys argued that permitting the Home choose committee investigating the rebellion to search out out precisely what Trump did and who he spoke to whereas the Capitol was being sacked will lead to Congress going after presidents from right here on out. “In these hyperpartisan occasions, Congress will more and more and inevitably use this new weapon to perpetually harass its political rival,” Trump attorneys Jesse Binnall and Justin Clark wrote in a quick filed with the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The attorneys went onto declare that henceforth, Congress would discover excuses, like the January assault on democracy, to pry into White Home paperwork. “Each Congress will level to some unprecedented factor about ‘this President’ to justify a request for his presidential data,” they wrote.

This, of course, is a hilarious place to take for just a few causes, one of which is that Trump has by no means not acted solely out of self-interest in his 75 years on Earth, and doubtless isn’t going to begin now. One other is the notion that Congress is just performing on partisan motivations right here, relatively than making an attempt to research one of the worst occasions in American historical past. After which there’s the concept that Trump simply cares so deeply about the sanctity of the workplace of the president. Sure, Trump, the man who shat on the presidency on a every day foundation from 2017 to 2021—that man is searching for future officeholders and desperately desires to make sure nobody will get any concepts about abusing their energy. It’s a really plausible argument that doesn‘t fly in the face of actually every thing we find out about him.

Sadly for Mom Teresa:

Biden has repeatedly sided with the Home [and against Trump] on all however a small quantity of the requested data, that are being reviewed in batches. Earlier this month, U.S. District Court docket Choose Tanya Chutkan turned down Trump’s request for an injunction, saying he was unlikely to prevail in the case. Chutkan stated that Biden’s resolution to not again Trump’s government privilege declare critically undermined it. “Presidents aren’t kings, and Plaintiff shouldn’t be President,” Chutkan wrote in her ruling.

Trump’s attorneys didn’t handle that facet of Chutkan’s ruling. Trump is as a substitute asking the appeals court docket to think about the political motivations of lawmakers and the White Home—and to presume that rival political events are prone to search to punish political opponents above different potential prerogatives.

Chutkan’s ruling “would enable Congress, the most political department, unfettered entry to presidential data each time the identical get together is in management of the Government and Legislative branches,” they attorneys argued. “This might undoubtedly intestine the government privilege.”