Court accelerates appeal in Trump bank records case

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York court agreed Friday to accelerate President Donald Trump’s challenge of a judge’s decision to allow Congress to subpoena the President’s personal and business records from two banks.

In a one-page order, Appellate Judge Ray Lohier Jr. granted a joint motion for an expedited appeal filed by lawyers for Trump and the House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, which issued the subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One.

The subpoenas seek, in some cases, a decade of personal and business records belonging to Trump, his company, his children, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Last week, US District Judge Edgardo Ramos in New York became the second federal judge to deny Trump’s attempts to block congressional subpoenas. Ramos’ ruling to allow the bank subpoenas followed that of US District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC, who rejected Trump’s effort to stop the House Oversight Committee from obtaining records from Mazars USA, Trump’s longtime accounting firm. Trump appealed the ruling in Mazars and the DC Court of Appeals agreed to speed up that appeal.

In both cases, the House agreed to expedite the appeal even though the ruling was in its favor to avoid an appeals process that could take years to work through the system.

Lohier did not set a date for oral arguments but directed the court clerk to “calendar argument in this matter for the earliest possible sitting week after briefing is completed.” The final reply brief is due July 18. A court official said oral arguments are likely to be scheduled in August or September.

In last week’s ruling, Ramos unilaterally rejected Trump’s arguments that the subpoenas from House Democrats were intended to harass the president and served no legislative purpose.

Ramos denied Trump’s request for a preliminary injunction stating, “Without the power to investigate, including of course the authority to compel testimony, either through its own processes or through judicial trial, Congress could be seriously handicapped in its efforts to exercise its constitutional function wisely and effectively.”