President Biden’s White House will not assert executive privilege over any aspects of testimony from former President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to the congressional committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, a spokesperson told reporters on Tuesday.
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield reiterated Biden’s belief that the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol represented a unique threat to democracy and that “the constitutional protection of executive privilege should not be used to shield from Congress or the public information about an attack on the Constitution itself.”
“The White House has decided not to assert executive privilege over the testimony of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump,” Bedingfield said.
She declined to comment on any private communications between White House lawyers and attorneys for Trump or Kushner.
Kushner, who served in a senior role in his father-in-law’s administration, is expected to sit for a voluntary interview with the committee this week. Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, who also served as White House adviser, has reportedly been in talks with the panel for a possible voluntary interview.
The decision by the White House is not surprising; Biden has declined to assert executive privilege over Trump-era White House documents and visitor logs as well as testimony from other former Trump officials.
The former president unsuccessfully sought to use executive privilege to block the committee from obtaining White House records. The Supreme Court rejected his bid to do so earlier this year, allowing the Jan. 6 committee access to troves of documents it requested from the National Archives in connection with the probe.