Former President Donald Trump sued the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riots in order to block a subpoena for documents and his testimony. 

According to court documents, Trump has raised questions over the legitimacy of the committee. He claims he should be immune from testimony about the time he was president.

Trump’s lawyers said that they tried to reach out to the committee about answering written questions while expressing “concerns and objections” about the bulk of the document requests.

Also Read | United Nations to hold urgent session on Iran’s alleged human rights violations, threats against journalists

“The Subpoena’s request for testimony and documents from President Trump is an unwarranted intrusion upon the institution of the Presidency because there are other sources of the requested information, including the thousand-plus witnesses the Committee has contacted and one million documents that the Committee has collected,” his attorneys argued in the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida. “The Committee also may obtain abundant government records relevant to its inquiry. Because of this obvious availability to obtain testimony and documents from other readily available sources, the Subpoena is invalid.”

According to Trump, meeting the House committee would violate privilege protections around the executive branch, including revealing conversations he had with Justice Department officials. He also said that it was not necessary for him to make public about he inner workings of his 2020 presidential campaign, “including his political beliefs, strategy, and fundraising. President Trump did not check his constitutional rights at the Oval Office door. Because the Committee’s Subpoena to President Trump infringes upon his First Amendment rights it is invalid.”

Also Read | Elon Musk clap back at Bernie Sanders over insulin prices after Eli Lilly loses billions

Trump’s attorney, David Warrington, said in a statement, that “long-held precedent and practice maintain that separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it.”

Last week, the House committee extended the deadline for Trump to hand over documents as part of a subpoena issued last month.

The committee’s decision to subpoena Trump was a major escalation in the investigation as they believe the former president was the “central player” in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.