President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he departs for travel to Minnesota from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S. October 10, 2019.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
A federal appeals court in a split ruling Friday rejected President Donald Trump’s bid to block a subpoena for his financial records from the Democrat-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
The 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a federal district judge’s decision denying Trump’s effort to stop the committee from getting eight years’ worth of his financial records from the accounting firm Mazars USA.
Friday’s dissent came from Judge Neomi Rao, who was appointed by Trump to the D.C. appeals court.
Judges David Tatel and Patricia Millett voted to deny Trump’s appeal to block the House request to Mazars for various financial statements related to the Trump Organization, the Trump Corporation, and the Trump Old Post Office in Washington. Tatel was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, while Millett was appointed by President Barack Obama.
“Contrary to the President’s arguments, the Committee possesses authority under both the House Rules and the Constitution to issue the subpoena, and Mazars must comply,” Tatel wrote in the majority opinion.
Tatel also said that “we conclude that in issuing the challenged subpoena, the Committee was engaged in a ‘legitimate legislative investigation.'”
The ruling does not mean that Trump’s financial records will immediately be released to the committee, which had issued its subpoena on April 15.
The appeals panel ordered that the effect of the ruling be put on hold until seven days after the disposition of a petition for a rehearing of the case by either the same panel or by the entire D.C. Circuit judges.
In addition to seeking a rehearing, Trump can ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take his appeal.
“We are reviewing the opinion and evaluating all appellate options,” Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow said.
Neal Katyal, a former acting U.S. solicitor general — the lawyer who argues for the federal government at the Supreme Court — said on Twitter that Trump could have a tough time getting the high court to overturn the decision given the fact that a federal judge and a highly respected appeals court have both ruled for the House.
In her dissent, Rao said: “Investigations of impeachable offenses simply are not, and never have been, within Congress’s legislative power.”
“Throughout our history, Congress, the President, and the courts have insisted upon maintaining the separation between the legislative and impeachment powers of the House and recognized the gravity and accountability that follow impeachment,” Rao wrote. “Allowing the Committee to issue this subpoena for legislative purposes would turn Congress into a roving inquisition over a co-equal branch of government.”
But the majority opinion brushed aside Rao’s dissent.
“To be sure, a Congress pursuing a legitimate legislative objective may, as the many examples recounted in the dissent demonstrate, choose to move from legislative investigation to impeachment,” Tatel wrote.
“But the dissent cites nothing in the Constitution or case law—and there is nothing—that compels Congress to abandon its legislative role at the first scent of potential illegality and confine itself exclusively to the impeachment process.”
Trump currently is asking the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Manhattan to block another subpoena, for his corporate and personal income tax returns, which was issued by a state grand jury in New York City.
That other subpoena was sought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as part of a separate criminal investigation.
Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. is probing how the Trump Organization accounted for hush money payments paid before the 2016 presidential election to two women, porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, in exchange for their keeping quiet about their alleged affairs with Trump years earlier.
Trump has denied having sex with either woman.
A federal judge in Manhattan earlier this week dismissed Trump’s effort to block the DA’s subpoena.
The 2nd Circuit is set to hear Trump’s appeal of that decision later this month.