15 May 2019

Swift Justice

Donald Trump has filed two lawsuits in recent weeks in an attempt to block release of his personal financial information to House of Representatives investigators. The suits came after various businesses prepared to comply with the House's subpoenas.

An important hearing occurred yesterday in one of those lawsuits (details here and here) and the judge certainly sounded like he's highly skeptical of Trump's legal arguments.

Trump's very dubious argument holds that Congress cannot review such matters because (he claims) they're politically motivated. Attorneys representing the House, however, were sharp enough in their argument that the judge said motives can’t be questioned when deciding the legality of a Congressional subpoena.

No congressional subpoena has been overturned by a court since 1880, so Trump is already fighting a very uphill battle. And the arguments they attempted to put forward yesterday would invalidate prior Congressional review of past presidencies, actions which the Supreme Court specifically upheld.

It sounds like the judge will rule on this matter next week sometime. Few legal experts will be surprised if the judge rules against Trump as his legal arguments are so thin. If that happens, expect Trump to petition the US Court of Appeals to intervene. If that happens, then the trial judge's ruling might be blocked pending appellate action.

The President likely wants this before the Supreme Court in hopes that the conservatives will save his bacon. History tells us, however, that the high court is hostile to presidential attempts to evade congressional oversight, as both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton learned when they lost their subpoena appeals when they were before the Supremes.

The second lawsuit Trump has filed challenging financial subpoenas has a hearing scheduled for next week in New York. Stay tuned.

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