On Tuesday morning, President Trump said he would appeal a Monday decision from a D.C. federal judge that upheld a Congressional subpoena to his longtime accounting firm.
The notice of appeal — filed by Trump personal attorney William Consovoy — says that the President intends to contest “all aspects of this Court’s order and opinion from May 20.”
The May 20 ruling from Judge Amit Mehta compared Trump to President James Buchanan, and constituted a wide-ranging repudiation of the President’s attempts to fend off Congressional investigations into his finances and insulate himself from oversight by the legislature.
Trump sued his longtime accountant Mazars USA LLP in a bid to stop it from complying with a Congressional subpoena it received from the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD).
Cummings began the investigation based off of testimony from longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen in a bid to determine whether the President would inflate or deflate the his assets for various business situations, as Cohen alleged. The committee is also investigating Trump’s compliance with the Constitution’s Emoluments clause, which forbids presidents from receiving things of value from foreign states.
Trump took the unprecedented step of suing Mazars after it received the subpoena, and filed a similar lawsuit against Deutsche Bank and Capital One to prevent them from complying with other congressional investigations.
The lawsuits mark a particularly unprecedented aspect of the President’s war on any attempt by House Democrats to probe into his financial history.
The notice of appeal said that the Monday ruling “treated the parties’ preliminary-injunction filings as cross-motions for summary judgment, entered final judgment against Plaintiffs, and denied Plaintiffs’ request for a stay pending appeal.”
Trump is widely expected to take the case to the Supreme Court.
Read the notice of appeal here:
Surprised he hasn’t sent a few plumbers over to Mazars to just retrieve all the copies…
Judge Merrick Garland is going to be very happy to see him.
All aspects of the decision means the court will be asked to strip the Congress of any oversight of the Executive Branch.
Will Barr argue for Trump before the Court?
The lower court decision is not stayed. That means that the subpoena is currently in effect, and the accounting firm is supposed to turn the information over to Congress.
Trump will ask the Court of Appeals for a stay. If it’s denied, then Trump will go to the US Supreme Court to try to get a stay of the subpoena while the case proceeds. In the meantime, though, the firm is supposed to turn over the information.
I bet they won’t.