The D.C. Circuit will hear oral argument at 9:30 a.m. on Friday (July 12) in the battle over President Donald Trump’s accounting records. The three-judge panel for Trump v. Mazars USA consists of Neomi Rao, Trump’s newest judge on the D.C. Circuit, along with Judges Millett and Tatel.
The case has been on a fast track to oral argument ever since the parties were granted their request for an expedited appeal. The Trump legal team filed its opening brief on June 10, arguing that the congressional subpoena seeking eight years of Trump’s financial records serves no legitimate legislative purpose because “it is an effort to investigate alleged legal violations–power that is vested in the Executive, not Congress.”
The House Oversight and Reform Committee filed its response on July 1 asserting that it is well within its “broad” authority to investigate “issues of national importance concerning ethics and conflicts of interest across the Executive Branch.”
On Tuesday (July 9), the Trump team filed its final brief highlighting the danger of upholding a “limitless conception of Congress’s subpoena power.” In a nod perhaps to the eventual recipients of these arguments and briefs, Trump’s lawyers emphasized that such broad power to exact testimony and records from the President would also “be true for the Justices”—meaning the nine could also be compelled by a “broad” congressional subpoena.
Oral argument in the D.C. Circuit is typically scheduled for 10 to 15 minutes for each side, but in this case the court doubled the time and ordered 30 minutes for each side. The hearing will be in Courtroom 20 on the sixth floor and is open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis, and there will be no overflow seating.
