we have come to demand that congress do the right thing, and only count certain electors. and equally essential aspect of the rule of law says the ruling is the peaceful transition of power and the constitutional role prescribed for congress in verifying the electoral college vote, to allow the privilege of a no longer sitting president to prevail over congress s need to investigate a violent attack on its home. and its constitutional operations. that would gravely impair the basic function of the legislature. president trump bears the burden of at least showing some weighty interest in continued confidentiality, that could be capable of tipping the scales back in his favor. he has not done so. he has not identified any specific counter vailing need for confidentiality, tied to the documents at issue, beyond there being presidential communications. neither has he presented arguments that grapple with the substance of president biden s and congress s weighty judgments of why these docum
they have stayed effectively, the implementation of this ruling for 14 days to give trump the chance to appeal this to the united states supreme court, what do you think will happen there, and what will happen in terms of the timing and how the pace of this has been handled thus far. obviously, at the end of the road, the documents are either going to get handed over or they re not. what do you make of the potential time line, if and when he appeals it up to the supreme court. it could be that it goes in its normal course and takes many months to shake out. the law is quite clear here, it s why we saw such strong language from the district judge and appellate court. it wouldn t surprise me to see the court decide this on a shadow docket, which is where it makes procedural decisions and decide not to take this up and just let this court of appeals decision stand. that to me seems the most likely thing and it seems likely that that could happen within a matter of weeks.
preparing to argue to the court themselves that they don t have to comply with the investigation themselves because it s nots a proper investigation, that seems to be one of the grounds on which both bannon and meadows are trying to justify to the court that they are not complying with the investigation just like trump isn t. the problem for them now is that this ruling tonight, this is the appeals court that holds jurisdiction where both the meadows case and the steve bannon case are being heard. so an appeals court ruling on the legitimacy of this investigation is a definitive thing that the courts in that circuit have to abide by, and in this appeals court ruling tonight, the january 6th investigation is described as quite legitimate. it s described in this ruling, congress is described as having a uniquely vital interest in carrying out the investigation. so to the extent that steve ban nonand mark meadows were going to say we don t need to comply, congress is didn t something they
14 days from now would be when tonight s ruling would go into effect, barring an appeal to the u.s. supreme court. for the trecord, that would be december 23rd, and wouldn t that be a fine start to a merry christmas for everyone. presumably, though, he s going to appeal to the supreme court. and he ll do so in time to stop the documents from being handed over.es as to what the supreme court will do with his appeal and how fast they ll move if they do take the case, i really don t know. other federal court judges in the district court and the appeals court in washington, d.c., they have been willing to hear this on a hurry up basis, l really fast basis. i think in part, according to the rulings because the judges have recognized the urgency of this investigation, because of the seriousness of january 6th and also because the investigation will probably getf kneecapped if the republicans take over the house and shut it down.
thompson, democratic congressman from mississippi, and vice chair, liz cheney, republican congresswoman from wyoming. we say, quote we applaud the ruling, which respects the committee s interest in obtaining white house records, and president biden s judgment in allowing those records to be produced. our work moves ahead swiftly. we will get to the truth. swiftly being a very very operative word in that statement. joining us now is barbara mcquaid, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan. always great to see you. thank you so much for being here. my pleasure, rachel. first of all, let me ask you about the pace here before i ask you about the content of this ruling. i ran down the time line a little bit, and sort of blooifly asserted to our audience that this is unusually fast for the federal judiciary to move, president trump filed suit saying i don t want to hand over those documents in mid october. the first ruling happened before