President Donald Trump has rejected former President Joe Biden’s attempt to shield a cache of documents from Congress, declaring that keeping them secret would not serve the nation’s interests, Fox News Digital has reported.
The decision clears the way for Senate investigators to review materials tied to multiple probes involving the 46th president — including questions about his health while in office, alleged politically motivated investigations against Trump allies, and the Biden family’s overseas business dealings.
In a letter sent Monday to the National Archives and Records Administration, White House counsel David Warrington made the administration’s stance crystal clear.
Trump, Warrington wrote, “does not uphold the former President’s assertion of privilege” regarding documents sought by lawmakers in four separate congressional investigations.
The directive instructs the archives to turn over the requested records to Senate committees.
At the center of the dispute is Biden’s claim of executive privilege — a doctrine typically used by presidents to keep certain internal communications confidential in order to protect candid decision-making inside the executive branch. But the Trump administration argues the privilege cannot be used to wall off evidence from congressional oversight.
The records in question were requested as part of several Senate investigations examining issues that Republicans say strike at the heart of Congress’ constitutional duty to oversee the executive branch.
One major request comes from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is examining what lawmakers describe as a possible effort to conceal Biden’s declining health while he was president.
In his letter, Warrington quoted an earlier congressional request raising concerns about the extensive use of an autopen — a device that automatically signs documents with a president’s signature.
“The abuse of the autopen that took place during the Biden Presidency, and the extraordinary efforts to shield President Biden’s diminished faculties from the public, must be subject to a full accounting to ensure nothing similar ever happens again,” Warrington wrote, echoing the language used by investigators.
Another set of records sought by lawmakers relates to investigations conducted during Biden’s presidency that Republicans believe were politically motivated and targeted Trump and his associates. Biden attempted to block access to those materials as well.
The Trump White House pushed back sharply, arguing that executive privilege should not be used to obscure potential political misuse of government power.
According to the letter, “the constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield from Congress evidence of a President’s efforts to imprison his opponent.”
A third category of documents concerns the Biden family’s financial relationships and possible conflicts of interest.
Investigators have shown interest in Biden’s use of private email accounts and his activities in Ukraine during his vice presidency — particularly while his son Hunter Biden held a lucrative board position with a Ukrainian energy company.
Warrington acknowledged that the Supreme Court has recognized executive privilege as protecting sensitive presidential deliberations. But he questioned whether such protection could apply to matters involving family business dealings.
He wrote that he was “unaware of a Supreme Court ruling or constitutional text that extends those protections to former President Biden’s efforts to assist his son’s shady business deals.”
The message from the White House was unequivocal. “President Trump instructs you to provide to these congressional committees the pages identified as privileged by the former President,” Warrington wrote to the National Archives.
The move follows an earlier decision by Warrington to reject another privilege claim by Biden involving documents about the administration’s use of the autopen.
Biden has firmly denied accusations that key presidential documents were signed by autopen without his knowledge or involvement. Responding to the allegations last year, he dismissed them outright.
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,” Biden said in a June statement. “Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Concerns about Biden’s mental sharpness had circulated for years before erupting into a national debate during the 2024 election cycle.
Republicans had warned as early as the 2020 campaign that Biden appeared to be losing his edge. Those concerns intensified dramatically after a widely criticized debate performance against Trump in the summer of 2024. The fallout ultimately led Biden to withdraw from the presidential race.
