Tag: what’s Trump hiding?

House Judiciary: McGahn case could stop congressional oversight ‘as we know it’

Case before D.C. Circuit hinges on House standing to file suit

The House Judiciary Committee warned a federal appeals court Thursday that the wrong decision in a separation-of-powers showdown with the Trump administration over the enforcement of subpoenas could “effectively eliminate Congressional oversight as we know it.”

Committee lawyers filed the brief as part of the House effort to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify about events detailed in the Mueller report. The Trump administration has argued the close presidential adviser enjoys “absolute immunity” from such testimony.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is set to hear oral arguments April 28 on the committee’s McGahn subpoena, as well as the House’s effort to stop the construction of a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Continue reading.

Trump removed the head of the coronavirus bailout oversight board. Its members could be next

AlterNet logoIn the wake of President Trump’s move to push aside the official who was supposed to lead the coronavirus bailout watchdog group, four other members are just as vulnerable.

Trump was able to remove the panel’s chosen head, Glenn Fine, by naming a new Defense Department inspector general and bumping Fine to the No. 2 job at the Pentagon watchdog office. No longer an acting inspector general, Fine was disqualified from serving on the panel he was supposed to lead.

Fine’s removal sounded an alarm among Democrats in Congress, who had demanded that spending safeguards be built into the $2 trillion recovery package. House Democrats rushed out a proposed tweak that would stop further removals like Fine’s by opening up eligibility to senior officials in IG offices, not just IGs themselves. Continue reading.

Trump’s resistance to independent oversight draws bipartisan scrutiny

Washington Post logoPresident Trump is coming under bipartisan scrutiny in Congress after he ousted two inspectors general and publicly criticized a third — actions that have left lawmakers wrestling yet again with an administration that has repeatedly flouted efforts at independent oversight since Trump took office.

His resistance to the watchdog system established after the ­Watergate scandal come on two fronts that have largely defined the Trump presidency: His impeachment, which was triggered by his attempts to pressure Ukraine into conducting a political investigation of one of his domestic rivals; and his administration’s management of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, in which trillions of taxpayer dollars are being disbursed.

Trump’s dismissal of Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general, has in particular troubled influential Senate Republicans who are pushing the president for a more detailed explanation of why Atkinson was suddenly booted from his position late last week. Continue reading.

Supreme Court temporarily blocks House subpoena of Trump financial records

The Hill logoThe Supreme Court has issued a temporary stay of an appeals court ruling that granted House Democrats access to President Trump‘s financial records, Chief Justice John Roberts announced Monday.

Trump’s lawyers had appealed the ruling, which was set to go into effect Wednesday.

The subpoena from the House Oversight and Reform Committee will be unenforceable while the Supreme Court decides whether to take up the case or prolong Roberts’s administrative stay. The panel is seeking eight years of Trump’s financial records from his accounting firm.

View the complete November 18 article by Harper Neidig on The Hill website here.

Appeals court clears way for Congress to seek Trump financial records

The Hill logoThe federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday ruled that House Democrats can obtain President Trump‘s financial records, setting up a potential Supreme Court challenge.

The circuit court judges declined a request from Trump to have the court’s full bench of judges hear the case after a three-judge panel in October denied Trump’s request to shield his longtime accounting firm Mazars from having to comply with lawmakers’ subpoena for records.

The judges voted 8 to 3 against rehearing the case. Those in the majority included seven judges appointed by Democrats, including Chief Judge Merrick Garland, and one Republican appointee, Judge Thomas B. Griffith. The dissenters were all Republican appointees.

View the complete November 13 article by John Kruzel and Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

Judge sides with NY officials in Trump tax return lawsuit

The Hill logoA federal judge on Monday dismissed two New York officials from President Trump‘s lawsuit over his state tax returns.

Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in federal district court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the D.C.-based court doesn’t have jurisdiction over the New York officials: Attorney General Letitia James and state tax official Michael Schmidt.

“Mr. Trump bears the burden of establishing personal jurisdiction, but his allegations do not establish that the District of Columbia’s long-arm statute is satisfied here with respect to either Defendant,” Nichols wrote.

View the complete November 11 article by Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

To Hide His Tax Returns, President Claims Monarchical Authority

Donald Trump’s desperate attempt to block a New York grand jury subpoena seeking his tax returns, which he once promised to publicly release, makes you wonder anew why he is so keen to prevent anyone from looking at those records, even in secret. But the case also raises the more momentous question of whether presidents have an unqualified right to quash such demands as long as they occupy the White House.

Trump’s view, as U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero summarized it last month, is that “the person who serves as President, while in office, enjoys absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind.” Marrero rejected that claim as “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.” And on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit agreed.

The subpoena seeking Trump’s returns from his accounting firm is part of a probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who is investigating hush payments received by two women who say they had sexual relationships with the president before he was elected. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, is serving a prison sentence for federal crimes related to those payments, and Vance is reportedly curious about whether the scheme also violated a state law prohibiting falsification of business records.

View the complete November 10 article by Jacob Sullum on the National Memo website here.

White House lawyer says he will defy impeachment subpoena

The Hill logoWhite House lawyer John Eisenberg said that despite being subpoenaed to appear, he will not show up for testimony in the House impeachment inquiry on Monday, on instructions from President Trump. 

White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a letter to William Burck, Eisenberg’s attorney, on Sunday that the Justice Department had advised him that Eisenberg, as a senior adviser to Trump, is “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters related to his service as a senior adviser to the President.”

“The constitutional immunity of current and former senior advisers to the President exists to protect the institution of the Presidency and, as stated by former Attorney General [Janet] Reno, ‘may not be overborne by competing congressional interests,” Cipollone wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Hill.

View the complete November 4 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Appeals court delays House’s access to Mueller grand jury secrets

The D.C. court granted the Justice Department’s request while it considers whether to grant a longer stay.

A federal appeals court has put a temporary hold on a judge’s order requiring the Justice Department to give the Democratic-led House grand jury material from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that could be fodder for the ongoing impeachment effort against President Donald Trump.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an order Tuesday granting the Justice Department’s request for an administrative stay of Chief Judge Beryl Howell’s ruling Friday, in which she concluded House lawmakers were entitled to the usually secret grand jury information.

Howell also had rejected a key White House argument: The impeachment investigation is unconstitutional because no House vote has been taken to initiate it.

View the complete October 29 article by Josh Gerstein on the Politico website here.

Appeals court rejects Trump bid to keep financial records from House Democrats

The Hill logoA federal appeals court on Friday ruled against President Trump in his attempt to quash a subpoena for his financial records from House Democrats.

In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of judges for the Federal Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the subpoena, issued by the Democratic-led House Oversight and Reform Committee, is “valid and enforceable.”

Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) cheered the ruling, calling it a “fundamental and resounding victory for Congressional oversight, our Constitutional system of checks and balances, and the rule of law.”

View the complete October 11 article by Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.