The House Committee on Oversight has sought to expedite the mandate for production of Trump's tax returns that it won in the recent (2-1) decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. But Trump's lawyers, seeking delay, have sought both panel rehearing and en banc review by the entire D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court has set an expedited briefing schedule. The House's brief on the en banc issue is due November 1, limited to 3,900 words.
A stay pending appeal is necessary because compliance would moot the entire controversy. Like the Committee my opinion is that the Trump position borders frivolous but there is surely an audience on the Supreme Court and likely the Circuit for the dissent by newly appointed Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, a former clerk to Clarence Thomas. Donald Trump's lawyers in their petition therefore argue:
the majority incorrectly held that the “Committee is pursuing a legislative, as opposed to a law-enforcement, objective.” As Judge Rao explained, “the gravamen of the Oversight Committee’s investigation ... is the President’s wrongdoing.” A congressional investigation of the President on “suspicions of criminality or allegations that [he] violated a law ... may be pursued exclusively through impeachment.”. But the Committee “has not invoked Congress’s impeachment power to support this subpoena.”Judge Rao and Mr. Trump's lawyers have pinned their claims to the scope of the statement that accompanied the issuance of the subpoena. At that point an impeachment inquiry was in the air but the Speaker had not authorized it. That has changed strikingly since the Whistleblower complaint about the President's efforts to pressure Ukraine for election help. More importantly Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell has endorsed the House's exercise of its impeachment authority.in the matter of the application of the Judiciary Committee for grand jury materials.
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