Donald Trump is preparing a lawsuit to block the release of White House records related to his involvement in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and the effort to overthrow the 2020 election, according to The Guardian. The legal challenge will “likely to lead to constitutional clashes in court that would test the power of Congress’s oversight authority over the executive branch,” notes the outlet.

The House committee probing the attack has subpoenaed the materials. Trump’s lawsuit would hinge on executive privilege, the legal theory that a president is entitled to off-the-record communication in order to solicit advice unrestrained by political considerations.

“Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of my administration and the patriots who worked beside me, but on behalf of the office of the president of the United States and the future of our nation,” Trump said in a statement.

However, only a current presidential administration can invoke executive privilege, according to former Obama White House Counsel Neil Eggleston.

Eggleston recently told Harvard Law Today:

…under our system, the authority attaches to the office, not the human. President Biden has this power because he’s president, not because he’s Joe Biden. And when President Trump was in office, he had the power because he was President Trump, not because he was Donald Trump. So, I think the law is pretty well settled. But again, we have many years later a very new Supreme Court.

“We take this matter incredibly seriously,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week. She indicated that the Biden administration would hand over the requested documents.

This would be major: The White House is leaning toward dispensing with precedent and giving information to Congress about Trump's actions Jan. 6, even if Trump tries to invoke executive privilege to shield the document.https://t.co/B66bM3wwz1

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 24, 2021

Still, Trump’s lawsuit can slow down the House’s investigation. More from Eggleston’s interview with Harvard Law Today:

I assume [Trump] would sue the archivist seeking an order barring the National Archives from turning over the information. Under U.S. law, you can’t get an injunction against the president, so you can’t sue him. The way to get around that is to sue the people who would actually do the work. So, I think he would sue the archivist — just as he sued his accounting firm and his bank in the Congressional subpoena litigation that went to the Supreme Court — seeking an order barring them from turning over his communications. 

Eggleston expects the lawsuit to be dismissed by a lower court, but any delay might run out the clock on the investigation. That Guardian notes that if the GOP wins back the lower chamber in 2022, it can shut down the committee probe.

The Guardian adds:

The former president also expects top aides – former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel – to defy select committee subpoenas for records and testimony.