The White House won't allow former President Donald Trump to invoke executive privilege to keep a set of documents out of the hands of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed Friday that Biden has informed the National Archives that the president has determined “an assertion of executive privilege is not warranted for the first set of documents from the Trump White House.”

“The administration takes the events of Jan. 6 incredibly seriously. … They pose an existential crisis in a test of whether our democracy could survive,” Psaki said during Friday’s news briefing. “It was, in many respects, a unique attack on the foundations of our democracy. The president’s dedicated to ensuring that something like that could never happen again, which is why the administration is cooperating with ongoing investigations, including the Jan. 6 Select Committee, to bring to light what happened.”

Psaki said the White House will evaluate future questions of executive privilege in the investigation on a case-by-case basis. 

Hours after the White House said it would not invoke executive privilege over the first batch of documents, Trump released a statement saying he too sent a letter to the National Archives on Friday, maintaining that around a dozen of the requested documents “contain information subject to executive privilege.”

“Should the committee persist in seeking other privileged information, I will take all necessary and appropriate steps to defend the Office of the Presidency,” the letter continued, signaling that Trump will continue to seek executive privilege despite Biden’s denial.

NBC News was the first to report Friday on the White House’s rejection of the potential privilege claim. The network reported that White House Counsel Dana Remus informed the National Archives of the decision in a letter. 

“The constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself,” the letter says, in part, according to NBC.

Remus also wrote that invoking executive privilege “is not in the best interests of the United States” and that the documents reviewed “shed light on events within the White House on and about January 6 and bear on the Select Committee’s need to understand the facts underlying the most serious attack on the operations of the Federal Government since the Civil War.”

The Associated Press reported Thursday that Trump also has sent a letter to at least some witnesses who were subpoenaed by the committee that made it clear that Trump plans to invoke privileges meant to protect presidential communications from being shared with Congress. 

Copies of the documents responsive to the request were turned over to the Biden White House and Trump's lawyers for review for potential executive privilege concerns in accordance with federal law and the executive order governing presidential records.

The incumbent president has the final say unless a court orders the Archives to take a different action. Trump has not formally sought to invoke executive privilege over the documents, though that action is expected soon.

Officials also expect him to try to take legal action to block the release of the documents.

Spectrum News has reached out to Trump’s office for comment.

The House committee is rapidly issuing subpoenas to individuals who are either connected to Trump or who helped plan the massive rally on the morning of Jan. 6 at which he told his supporters to “fight like hell."

The committee, which was formed over the summer, last month issued subpoenas to Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff; Dan Scavino, the former deputy chief of staff for communications; Kashyap Patel, a former Defense Department official; and Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser. 

A lawyer for Bannon said Friday that he will not comply with the committee's investigation because Trump is asserting executive privilege.

Meadows and Patel are “engaging” with the committee, according to its Democratic chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, and Republican vice chairwoman, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. 

A spokesman for the panel declined to comment on the status of a fourth witness, former Trump communications aide Dan Scavino.

Thompson said Thursday that additional subpoenas have gone to Ali Abdul Akbar, also known as Ali Alexander, and Nathan Martin, as well the organization “ Stop the Steal, "to learn more about a rally that was planned on the Capitol grounds at the same time as the larger gathering on the National Mall. The committee earlier subpoenaed 11 other individuals connected to the planning of the larger rally.”