Trump will ask DC appeals court to let him keep trying to shield his tax records from Congress

Former president Donald Trump will appeal a District of Columbia federal judge’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit he had brought in hopes of keeping the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee from gaining access to his tax returns.

Mr Trump’s attorneys on Wednesday gave notice that they will ask the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse the ruling by District Judge Trevor McFadden, one of Mr Trump’s own appointees to the federal bench.

In a 45-page opinion published on Tuesday, Judge McFadden found that Mr Trump’s arguments against allowing Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal to request that the Treasury Department turn over several years of Mr Trump’s tax returns to be unpersuasive as a matter of law.

Mr Trump had argued that Mr Neal’s request — which cited the need to ensure the proper functioning of the Internal Revenue Service program which automatically audits sitting presidents’ tax returns — was merely a pretext to obtain the returns so Democrats on the tax law-writing committee could release them to embarrass him.

But Judge McFadden wrote that “even if” Mr Trump had correctly characterised Mr Neal’s request, the former president was “wrong on the law”.

“A long line of Supreme Court cases requires great deference to facially valid congressional inquiries. Even the special solicitude accorded former Presidents does not alter the outcome. The Court will therefore dismiss this case,” he wrote.

Though Mr Trump has long used the courts to delay enquires into him and his administration, he has not had much luck doing so as of late.

In a separate lawsuit seeking to block the National Archives and Records Administration from turning over White House records pertaining to the January 6 insurrection to the House select committee established to investigate that day’s attack on the Capitol, a three-judge panel of the same appellate court ruled last week that Mr Trump was not entitled to an injunction blocking Nara from giving the select committee several tranches of records because the current president, Joe Biden, had properly determined not to shield them from the committee.

Mr Trump is appealing that decision as well, though whether he will be successful or not depends on whether the Supreme Court decides to accept the case rather than allow the DC Circuit court’s decision to stand.