Judge balks at White House's executive privilege claim over Ukraine emails
Source: Politico
A federal judge has rebuffed the Trump administration’s attempt to invoke executive privilege to withhold a batch of emails about a hold President Donald Trump put on U.S. aid to Ukraine in 2019.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Monday that the government had failed to make a convincing showing that the 21 messages between White House aide Robert Blair and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey were eligible for protection under legal privileges protecting the development of presidential advice or decisions made by other government officials.
The messages are considered key evidence about the event that triggered Trump’s impeachment by the House last year: his decision to halt aid to Ukraine in what critics and even some administration officials said was an attempt to pressure that country to launch an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden, who’s now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
As the impeachment probe unfolded, the New York Times sought the Blair-Duffey emails under the Freedom of Information Act, filing suit last November after failing to receive the requested messages. In May, Jackson ordered that the disputed emails be turned over to her for in camera review.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/judge-balks-at-white-houses-executive-privilege-claim-over-ukraine-emails/ar-BB17NzZ9?li=BBnb7Kz
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