Trump lawyers to appeal judge's ruling on his financial disclosures
President Trump's attorneys will appeal a federal judge's decision to side with a Democratic-led congressional committee that has subpoenaed the president's accounting firm for his financial records.
Mr. Trump's personal attorneys filed a formal notice of their appeal on Tuesday, an expected move that continues one of the many battles between the White House and Capitol Hill over records belonging to the president and his administration. Mr. Trump has sued the House Oversight and Reform Committee, led by Rep. Elijah Cummings, to stop Cummings' committee from obtaining financial records from his accounting firm, Mazars LLP.
In an odd twist, the chief justice of the court Mr. Trump's lawyers are appealing to is Merrick Garland, the Obama Supreme Court nominee Republicans stalled in the Senate until Mr. Trump won the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Trump nominated and the Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court instead.
The federal judge that sided with the House Oversight and Reform Committee, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, wrote that it is "simply not fathomable that a Constitution that grants Congress the power to remove a President for reasons including criminal behavior would deny Congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct — past or present — even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry."
Mr. Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn Monday night that his lawyers would appeal the ruling, with which he says he disagrees.
"Well we disagree with that ruling, it's crazy because you look at it – this never happened to any other president, they're trying to get a redo," the president told reporters. "They're trying to get what we used to call in school a do-over. And if you look, you know we had no collusion, we had no obstruction, we had no nothing. The Democrats were very upset with the Mueller report — as perhaps they should be — but the country is very happy about it because there was never anything like that. And they're trying to get a redo or a do over and you can't do that."
The fight between Capitol Hill and the White House over subpoenas and testimony is sure to be a long one. On Tuesday, White House counsel Don McGahn failed to show up for a House Judiciary Committee hearing, after the White House and Justice Department claimed he did not have to comply with the subpoena.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called a meeting for Wednesday morning to provide her caucus an update on ongoing oversight efforts and investigations.
— CBS News' Clare Hymes and Rebecca Kaplan contributed to this report.
