Trumps Strategy to Keep His Tax Returns Secret: Running Out the Clock – Vanity Fair

Donald Trump is continuing to fight lawmakers efforts to get their hands on his financial recordsand to use the same presidential harassment argument to justify stonewalling the House Oversight Committee. No prior Congress has demanded this kind of information, but every future Congress will if this court upholds the subpoena, Cameron T. Norris, a lawyer for the former president, told a D.C. appeals court on Monday. Theres no principled way to limit the fallout to President Trump.

That argument hasnt exactly worked for him before; though a federal judge in August put limits on what records House investigators could seek, the implication that Trump is completely above being subpoenaed has not passed legal muster. But it could be enough to help him execute his standard legal strategy: dragging out litigation for as long as possible. We urge this court in the strongest possible terms to rule as quickly as possible, Douglas Letter, an attorney representing the House of Representatives, told the three-judge panel Monday.

The case has been going on since 2019, when Democratsfresh off a midterm victory that gave them control of the House of Representativesdemanded Mazars USA, Trumps accounting firm, turn over his elusive financial records. Trump sued Mazars to block the firm from releasing them and has been battling in court to keep lawmakers from obtaining them. Last year, the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which allowed prosecutors to access Trumps tax returns but kept Congress from doing so for now, asking lower courts to consider whether the subpoenas are overly broad and if lawmakers could obtain the information elsewhere.

In August, federal judge Amit Mehta ruled that congressional investigators could obtain Trumps tax returns from his years in office and certain other records from the past decade, but no others. Neither side much liked that decision: Trump, whose financial records might provide evidence of wrongdoing, wants none of his documents released, and House lawmakers want more material than Mehtas ruling would allow. Both sides appealed, and the case went to a three-judge panel.

Those judgesKetanji Brown Jackson, Judith W. Rogers, and Sri Srinivasandidnt seem inclined toward Norris argument that upholding the subpoena would make presidents subject to harassment from lawmakers. But it remains to be seen if theyll accept Letters counterargumentthat the limits the Supreme Court asked lower courts to consider no longer apply to Trump because he is out of office. The Constitution does draw a clear line between a president and an ex-president, Letter said Monday. An ex-president is somebody who rejoins the great unwashed. It also remains to be seen what will happen if the case returns to the conservative Supreme Court, as it is likely to do eventually. But the biggest question hanging over the proceedings may be timing: Trump already made it through his one-term presidency without having to show his records to lawmakers. With a lengthy appeals process and more sure to come, its likely hell be able to drag the case out even longer.

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Trumps Strategy to Keep His Tax Returns Secret: Running Out the Clock - Vanity Fair