The House committee requests documents from agencies on Jan. 6 for the Capitol attack, which points to a massive investigative effort

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This initial wave of document requests was sent to several executive branch agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense and Home Affairs, the FBI, the National Counter-Terrorism Center, and the U.S. Bureau of Investigation. National Intelligence, as well as the National Archives, legal custody of all presidential records from the time of former President Donald Trump.

The national archives previously informed CNN that it possessed documents relevant to the committee’s investigation and that there is a process “by which Congress and the current administration can request access to the records of former administrations.”

Requests for committee documents can lead to potentially long fights for access.

President Joe Biden could try to prevent the committee from receiving any of the documents by asserting executive privilege. Trump could also claim executive privilege, but Biden has the upper hand over Trump over whether documents can be shared or whether doing so could compromise the presidency itself.

After that, Trump could still try to go to court to prevent the committee from obtaining documents from Trump’s White House and testimonies from people like the former White House Meadows cabinet chief.

The issue of executive privilege raises several potentially uncomfortable political scenarios for Biden.

If he asserts the privilege, the Democratic-led committee could look for more extreme legal avenues to try to get the records. Failure to do so could set a precedent that would open his administration to expansive Republican-led investigations if the Republican Party wins any of the chambers in the midterm elections.

The Biden administration has already declined to assert executive privilege over some January 6-related witnesses, telling former Justice Department officials they were free to provide “unrestricted testimony.”

But the Biden administration has not considered whether the committee should have unrestricted access to Trump White House records and documents.

CNN reported earlier this week that congressional investigators are also prepared to send notices to various telecommunications companies to ask them to keep the telephone records of several people, including members of Congress.

Representative Bennie Thompson, committee chair and Mississippi Democrat, said the group also plans to send notices to social media companies, though he declined to name which ones.

“I can tell you that we will look at everything that will give us information about what happened on January 6,” Thompson said. “We’ll see all the records at some point.”

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