AFL previously filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain materials relating to PITC.
According to AFL, the technology committee “creates a presumption that the President controls all information he receives” and is therefore “relevant to what a President may reasonably believe about information given to him in office.”
In other words, the PITC affects Donald Trump’s alleged document mishandling.
“Additionally, suppose the records Trump allegedly destroyed are still preserved within the EOP or the U.S. Department of Defense as part of PITC-created information systems,” AFL added. “In that case, claims in the indictment that President Trump removed or destroyed records may be baseless.”
“America First Legal’s suit today raises significant legal questions the Biden Administration must confront. First, the President’s Information Technology Committee presumes that all information received by the President is within his control. That principle complicates the indictment by the Special Counsel’s Office, particularly on the question of what President Trump was authorized to access and retain,” AFL Vice President Dan Epstein said in a statement.
“Alternatively, if the Court finds that records subject to PITC are agency records, not presidential records, and were separately preserved by the Department of Defense, then it raises serious questions about the National Archives’ decision to refer Trump to the Department of Justice as that referral would be based on the false claim that President Trump removed presidential records.”
https://twitter.com/America1stLegal/status/1775958268294435276
