The fate of Trump's financial records has ironically landed in the hands of Merrick Garland's court

(Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 22 May 2019

Oh, the irony.

President Trump's attorneys have filed an appeal after a federal judge ruled on Monday that Trump could not block a House subpoena of his financial records. The appeal, Politico reports, will be heard by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is headed by none other than Merrick Garland (though Garland won't necessarily be on the three-judge panel that will hear the actual appeal).

Garland was nominated by former President Barack Obama for the Supreme Court in early 2016 to replace former Justice Antonin Scalia after his death, but the Republican-controlled Senate infamously refused to to even consider Garland's nomination, claiming Obama's dwindling time in office meant that he should not have the authority to choose a justice who would serve long past the end of his presidency. So instead, lawmakers stalled until after the 2016 presidential election, which resulted in a Trump victory and, subsequently, the appointment of the more conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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