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Bloomberg
Donald Trump defeated Democrats’ effort to force former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify, in a court ruling that bolsters the president’s resistance to congressional oversight.
The federal appeals court’s ruling arrives too late to affect the impeachment process, which was resolved with Trump’s acquittal by the Senate in February. But it could have an impact on other congressional probes — a judge overseeing the House’s efforts to obtain Trump’s taxes scheduled a hearing for next week after having put that matter on hold awaiting a ruling on the McGahn case. The appeals court in Washington said it lacked jurisdiction to decide a dispute between the executive and legislative branches. “The Constitution does not vest federal courts with some ‘amorphous general supervision of the operations of government,’†Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith wrote for the majority, quoting in part from an earlier decision.
In her dissent, Circuit Judge Judith Rogers expressed concern that the White House would now be unrestrained in asserting privilege.
The majority’s decision “all but assures future Presidential stonewalling of Congress,†she said. Andy Grewal, a tax and administrative law professor at the University of Iowa, said the ruling will have implications for the Trump tax return case, as it also involves “a deeply debated and uncertain question†about Congress’ ability to sue the executive branch.
“In McGahn, the case is treated as the House suing the executive branch, even though McGahn is now a private person,†Grewal said. McGahn, who stepped down as White House counsel in October 2018, figured prominently in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.