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The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last week issued a surprisingly under-discussed opinion in the case of Trump v. Thompson, which involves the production of the executive branch and White House records to the January 6 committee. The opinion of a three-judge panel is a decisive rejection of Trump's assertions of executive privilege after leaving office. It also has potential implications for the witnesses who are refusing to testify before the committee. To chew it all over, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare congressional guru Molly Reynolds, Lawfare contributor and University of Kentucky College of Law professor Jonathan Shaub, and Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson. They talked about the opinion itself, what it holds and what it means, what it means for the witnesses who were holding out, whether it will stand, and how the committee is doing in general.


Jen Patja is the editor and producer of The Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Molly Reynolds is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes.
Jonathan Shaub is a contributing editor to Lawfare and an assistant professor of Law at the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law. He formerly served in the U.S. Department of Justice as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel and as a Bristow Fellow in the Solicitor General's Office.
Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.

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