Trump Loses Bid For Full Appeals Court Review Of House Subpoena For His Tax Returns

US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet Meeting at the White House on October 21, 2019 in Washington,DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
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President Trump failed to convince the full D.C. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a decision upholding a congressional subpoena of his tax returns, setting the stage for a potential Supreme Court showdown over the issue.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court previously upheld the subpoena, which was issued to Trump’s accounting firm Mazars by the House Oversight Committee in April.

Trump had appealed that decision en banc — meaning to the entire appeals court — and by a 8-3 vote, the full D.C. Circuit declined to take up the case.

The full appeals court had said earlier in the litigation that it would pause its ultimate order for seven days to give Trump time to appeal it to the Supreme Court. Trump brought the lawsuit against Mazars in his personal capacity.

The three appellate judges who would have reviewed the cased were all Republican appointees, and two of them were Trump appointees who previously worked in the Trump administration.

Trump’s personal lawyer Jay Sekulow told the Washington Post Wednesday evening that Trump “will be seeking review at the Supreme Court.”

In a statement, the acting Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) praised the appeals court’s move, and called on Trump to stop “blocking Mazars from complying with the Committee’s lawful subpoena.”

Read the order with the dissents below:

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Notable Replies

  1. Surprised that Dumpsterfire hasn’t “fired” Sotomayor and Kagen yet. But there’s still time…

  2. Great picture of trump channeling his inner two-year-old-in-mid-tantrum accompanies this article.

  3. To all you lawyers out there: What are the chances of the SC taking up a 8-3 en banc decision at the appellate court?

  4. “The three appellate judges who would have reviewed the cased were all Republican appointees, and two of them were Trump appointees who previously worked in the Trump administration.”

    Rao. Mark my words: she is eventually going to get her hands on a case that falls in the category of being a dream come true for her, and she will promptly issue one of, if not THE, single most batshit, ideologically asinine opinions ever to come out of the DC Circuit and it will be a disaster. She is perhaps the most activist judge in the country right now and that’s saying something given the crowded field of shitheads in TX.

  5. what I find most interesting about these stories is the emphasis on Trump’s tax returns – which played almost no role in the original reporting of the Mazars case.

    And if the Mazars documents do include tax returns, the Supreme Court may wind up getting involved, because then the Mazars case becomes an end run around the part of the tax code that only allows the House Ways and Means Chair to access individual tax returns. Indeed, the district court decision doesn’t treat – or even mention, income tax returns.

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