Hi everyone. Dani Anguiano taking over our US politics live blog for the rest of the day.

The justice department announced Friday that it would not file federal charges against the white police officer who shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. That officer, Rusten Sheskey, was not charged by local prosecutors in the incident and returned to duty earlier this year.

“After a careful and thorough review, a team of experienced federal prosecutors determined that insufficient evidence exists to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the KPD officer willfully violated the federal criminal civil rights statutes,” the justice department said in a press release.

Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times as officers tried to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. He has not been able to walk since, but said he expects to do so soon. The shooting, which occurred just months after George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota, sparked several nights of chaotic protests. During one of those protests, Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois teen, shot three people, killing two.

Donald Trump has issued a lengthy statement regarding the records sought by the House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol – and his failed efforts to withhold them by asserting executive privilege, a power only the person currently in office can wield and in this case has decided to waive.

He claims he sent a letter to the National Archives in defense of the office of the presidency and the constitution, among other things. He said the investigation into the attack of the US Capitol was about “using the power of the government to silence ‘Trump’ and our Make American Great Again movement” – no explanation why Trump is in quotations.

“My administration, and the great patriots who worked on behalf of the American people, will not be intimidated,” he wrote.

“These are unique and extraordinary circumstances,” White House counsel Dana Remus wrote in a letter to David Ferriero, archivist of the United States, regarding the records sought by the House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Donald Trump, in a two-page letter to the National Archives, indicated on Friday that he wanted to assert executive privilege over 45 documents identified by the National Archives as responsive to the committee’s request.

“Should the committee persist in seeking other privileged information, I will take all necessary and appropriate steps to defend the Office of the Presidency,” Trump wrote.

However, only the person currently in office can declare executive privilege – and Trump is not currently in office. “After my consultations with the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents,” Remus wrote in a letter obtained by the Guardian.

She noted – and White House press secretary Jen Psaki later confirmed at the press briefing – that privilege may be evaluated on a “case-by-case basis”, and some future material may still be protected.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki is at the podium for the press briefing, talking about Joe Biden and his decision to waive executive privilege for the first set of documents produced at the request of the House committee investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Sixteen Democratic senators sent a letter to homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and secretary of state Antony Blinken denouncing the US treatment of Haitian migrants and asylum seekers at the border.

“Ensuring the integrity of US borders is of utmost importance, and is not incompatible with the fundamental duty to respect the dignity, humanity, and rights of all individuals seeking entry to the United States,” the letter states. “We reiterate our call for the Biden administration to act swiftly in appointing a new special envoy for Haiti, and to work with our international partners throughout the region to find immediate solutions that places the protection needs of Haitian migrants and the long-term stability of Haiti at the core of our approach.”

This comes after Daniel Foote, the former special envoy for Haiti, testified before the House foreign affairs committee about his abrupt resignation in September over what he called the Biden administration’s “inhumane” mass deportation of Haitian migrants and asylum seekers.

He resigned shortly after shocking photos were published showing US border patrol agents on horseback using their reins on desperate Haitian refugees by the banks of the Rio Grande.

Joe Biden is now speaking about restoring protections to three national monuments: Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument off the coast in New England.

Protections for all three of these monuments were stripped or scaled down under the Trump administration. “The protection of public lands must not become a pendulum that swings back and forth depending on who is in public office,” Biden said. “It’s not a partisan issue.”

Interior secretary Deb Haaland – the first Native American interior secretary in US history – teared up speaking about the importance of these protections.

“Thank you, Mr President, for the profound action you are taking today to permanently protect the homelands of our ancestors,” she said.

“Our songs, our languages and our cultures are strong, and many people from many Indian tribes have sung and spoken in unison to protect this sacred place.”