Trump just got awful news from a federal appeals court

[turbinetree]

Trump's judges don't have the votes to bail him out — at least not yet.

Ian Millhiser
May 22, 2019, 12:35 pm

BuzzFeed’s Zoe Tillman reveals some truly terrible news for President Donald Trump’s efforts to resist a congressional investigation into his finances.

To explain, on Monday, federal District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Trump’s accounting firm must comply with a congressional subpoena seeking many of Trump’s financial records. Just as significantly, Mehta denied Trump a stay of this decision that lasts longer than one week. Thus, unless Trump’s lawyers can convince a higher court to issue such a stay by next Monday, the House Oversight Committee will soon know a whole lot more about Trump’s personal finances.

As Tillman reports, Trump’s request to stay Mehta’s decision will be heard by a motions panel consisting of Judges David Tatel, Patricia Millett, and Neomi Rao — at least assuming that this case proceeds through ordinary procedures and none of these three judges recuses. Tatel is a Clinton appointee. Millett is an Obama appointee. Rao is a Trump appointee. The case is Trump v. Committee on Oversight and Reform of the United States House of Representatives.

As Mehta explains in his opinion, Trump’s legal arguments are extraordinarily weak. Though “there are limits on Congress’s investigative authority,” Mehta wrote, those limits “do not substantially constrain Congress.” Rather, “so long as Congress investigates on a subject matter on which ‘legislation could be had,’ Congress acts as contemplated by Article I of the Constitution.”

There are many reasons why a congressional investigation into a sitting president’s finances is valid, and Mehta lists quite a few in his opinion, including the fact that “the requested records will aid [Congress’] consideration of strengthening ethics and disclosure laws, as well as amending the penalties for violating such laws.”

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-just-got-awful-news-from-a-federal-appeals-court-90ea60771ac8/

-snip-

But there’s only one of Rao on the three-judge panel. And Tatel and Millett are thoroughly normal people who most likely can be trusted to read the law in a normal way. Trump might get a dissent from Rao arguing that the law should not apply to him, but that’s all he’s likely to get.

That doesn’t mean that Trump will ultimately prevail in the Supreme Court — at least three members of that court bear far more resemblance to Rao than they do to Talel or Millett. But it does mean that Trump will need Chief Justice John Roberts’ vote to bail him out in this case. And Roberts’ vote is, at the very least, more uncertain than Rao’s.

[Iliyah]

1. I could be wrong but I don't think too many of his RW judge picks

will be going against the Constitutions and legal laws. They may not know the law and Constitution fully but I think they will learn it. They may try and skirt around it which would blow up in their faces.

[turbinetree]

2. Agreed..........................I still think some of them will be Impeached

I take the example of Vitter just getting approved. I really believe that the Turtle and her will go down, the smell of what happened in his state with the Russian money being thrown in and then her husband being tied to that money..................will not sit well, and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are also in trouble in my opinion, neither one of them should be on the bench .................will wait and see, I really think that when you go before committee and perjure yourself you should not be on that bench..................