Politics
White House asserts presidential privilege over records in Beatty's Kennedy Center suit
Trump formally invoked the privilege in Rep. Joyce Beatty's suit over the center's planned two-year closure.
The short version
- Trump formally invoked presidential communications privilege to withhold certain records from Rep. Joyce Beatty's lawsuit.[CBS News]
- The assertion covers communications between Trump, his advisers and Kennedy Center employees about the president's duties, according to Hoyt.[CBS News]
- The Justice Department calls Beatty's discovery a fishing expedition, and the legal challenge remains ongoing.[CBS News]
Key facts
- Trump formally invoked executive privilege to shield certain records from Rep. Joyce Beatty in her ongoing legal challenge.[CBS News]
- White House deputy counsel Joshua Hoyt told a federal judge on Wednesday of the presidential communications privilege assertion.[CBS News]
- According to Hoyt, the asserted privilege covers communications between Trump, his advisers and Kennedy Center employees about the president's duties and the institution's functioning.[CBS News]
- Justice Department lawyers accused Beatty of conducting a fishing expedition that raises separation-of-powers concerns.[CBS News]
- Beatty filed suit in December challenging the board's move to rename the center and shutter it for two years for renovations.[CBS News]
- In May, Judge Christopher Cooper blocked the closure and ordered Trump's name removed from the building's facade.[CBS News]
- During a deposition with Kennedy Center executive director Matthew Floca, a Justice Department lawyer repeatedly instructed him not to answer certain questions based on a protective executive privilege assertion.[CBS News]
- The administration said Beatty has received more than 7,500 pages of documents and participated in five depositions.[The Washington Sun]
What remains uncertain
- The Justice Department's characterization of Beatty's discovery as a fishing expedition is an attributed allegation and is not resolved in the reporting.[CBS News]
- The administration's figures on Beatty's document production and depositions are its own account in a court filing and are not independently verified.[The Washington Sun]
- Whether the court will accept the privilege assertion over the disputed records is not established in the reporting, since the claim is a pending assertion in an ongoing case.[CBS News]
Sources
Outlet counts describe coverage, not independent confirmation. Reports may share a wire service or original source.