Tuesday was not Donald Trump’s attorney Justin Clark’s day. An appeals court judge threw him for a loop after asking him why the former president has more authority than current president Joe Biden when it comes to decisions about executive privilege, Raw Story reports.

Clark was arguing during a hearing in federal court that Trump should be allowed to invoke executive privilege to stop the January 6 committee from viewing documents relating to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson couldn’t help but ask Trump’s attorneys “Is there a circumstance where the former president ever gets to make this sort of call?”

Judge Patricia Ann Millett topped that off by asking a hypothetical question wherein the current president needed to use the former president’s documents for national security reasons.

Justice correspondent Andrew Feinberg seemed incredulous as the hearing played out.

“Wow. Trump lawyer Justin Clark just stepped in it with Judge Millett,” he wrote. “He’s telling her that a former president could sue to stop a current president from using a previous administration’s records to conduct foreign policy and national security decision-making.”

Wow. Trump lawyer Justin Clark just stepped in it with Judge Millett. He's telling her that a former president could sue to stop a current president from using a previous administration's records to conduct foreign policy and national security decision-making.

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) November 30, 2021

But that’s really pretty typical of Trump and those who surround him. Trump quite obviously feels he should be able to throw his weight around whenever he wishes, even if he is out of office.

And Clark wasn’t able to give Millett a justifiable answer.

“Clark can’t give Millett a situation in which he thinks a court could let a current president use those documents under her hypothetical,” Feinberg added.

Just a few days before, a federal judge denied Trump’s request to block documents from being given to the Democratic-led committee investigating the Jan.6 riots at the Capitol, NPR reports. During that ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said the records, currently housed in the National Archives, can be released to the panel overseeing the investigation into the Jan. 6 attempted siege of the Capitol.

“Accordingly, the court holds that the public interest lies in permitting — not enjoining — the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again,” Chutkan wrote.

But that’s not all Chutkan noted. Trump, she wrote, “is unlikely to succeed on the merits of his claims or suffer irreparable harm, and because a balance of the equities and public interest bear against granting his requested relief.”

As you might expect, Trump’s attorneys filed a notice of appeal in the hopes of keeping the records out of the hands of committee members investigating the Jan. 6 riots. Fortunately, that went down in flames. As it should have.

Americans have every right to know what went down on that terrible day and must also have the rights to be protected from further insurrections. And Trump has no business trying to impede President Joe Biden from making key decisions on foreign policy and national security issues.

It’s now been more than a year since Trump lost his job. I don’t care what the man does to get over his loss. He’s not going to get his way on this and somehow magically reappear in the White House again. The situation may be different in 2024 if he does decide to run again (and let’s hope he doesn’t) but he needs to quit acting like this country somehow owes him a favor.

Because it doesn’t.

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