Trump To Ask SCOTUS To Decide Tax Case After Appeals Court Loss

President Trump’s accounting firm is just one step away from having to turn over eight years of tax records, after the US Court of Appeals for DC shut down Trump’s last attempt to reconsider the case.

A majority of the court’s 11-judge panel voted to uphold an October 11 decision by a three-judge panel that accounting firm Mazars USA must hand over the records to Congress without a successful appeal. Of those who would have granted a rehearing, two are Trump appointees – Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, who served in the Trump administration.

“This case presents exceptionally important questions regarding the separation of powers,” wrote Katsas.

He warned of the “threat to presidential autonomy and independence” and said it would be “open season on the President’s personal records” if Congress is allowed to compel the president to disclose personal records based on the possibility that it might inform legislation. –Washington Post

As a result, Trump will ask the Supreme Court to consider the case, according to Trump attorkey Jay Sekulow, who said in response to Wednesday’s decision that the legal team “will be seeking review at the Supreme Court,” according to the Washington Post.

Sekulow in a statement cited the “well reasoned dissent” in Trump’s decision to go to the Supreme Court.

Trump’s attorneys also are planning to ask the high court as soon as Thursday to block a similar subpoena for the president’s tax records from the Manhattan district attorney, who is investigating hush-money payments in the lead-up to the 2016 election. The New York-based appeals court ruled against Trump this month and refused to block the subpoena to his accounting firm, Mazars USA.

The D.C. Circuit case centers on a House Oversight Committee subpoena from March for the president’s accounting firm records — issued months before the beginning of its impeachment inquiry, related to Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden. –Washington Post

“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,” wrote Democrat-nominated Judges David S. Tatel and Patricia A. Millett.

Rao, the dissenting judge on the October 11 panel, reiterated that she felt the Congressional committee had exceeded its authority with a legislative subpoena “investigating whether the President broke the law.”

“By upholding this subpoena, the panel opinion has shifted the balance of power between Congress and the President and allowed a congressional committee to circumvent the careful process of impeachment,” she wrote.

Rao also wrote Wednesday that the committee “is wrong to suggest” that questions over whether the subpoena is valid “are no longer of ‘practical consequence,'” and that it’s an open question as to “whether a defective subpoena can be revived by after-the-fact approval.”