Today the District of Columbia Appeals Court refused to rehear the appeal on dt's tax records. This means the case is now on the fast track to the SCOTUS.
It takes 4 SCOTUS votes for the court to take up the case and 5 for a stay.
"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s request for an en banc rehearing of the case challenging a congressional subpoena to his personal accounting firm Mazars, sending the case on a direct path to the U.S. Supreme Court."
"In a per curiam order, the circuit court said a majority of the judges were against an en banc rehearing of the case. Three judges—Neomi Rao, Gregory Katsas and Karen Henderson—said they would have granted the petition for rehearing."
National Law Journal Article & Order
"A commentor made this point "DC Cir, just rejected en banc rehearing 8-3. Both Trumpie judges (Roa and Katsas) and one Bush judge, Henderson, voted to rehear, the other 8 members of the court voted not to.
"So off to the Supreme’s. Trump needs 4 votes there for review + 5 votes for a stay, otherwise his taxes will be talking shortly."
I wonder how many of the SCOTUS justices watched today's testimony?
Does Kavanaugh finish his own QPQ?
Stay tuned.
In an aside the story of whether McCabe will be indicted had an interesting twist today from the DOJ according to a Politico article.
When last we left McCabe the DOJ had not obtained an indictment and the rumors were rampant that a DC grand jury had refused to indict him. At the same time there was a FOIA request for records on McCabe that the AG was refusing to turn over claiming that they were protected for the time being over the criminal investigation.
Today the DOJ withdrew that claim.
"In a brief court filing Wednesday, Justice Department attorneys said they were no longer arguing that public release of records about McCabe would interfere with an ongoing enforcement action. That claim is typically used to withhold records about ongoing investigations or prosecutions."
Snip
"The move could signal that prosecutors have given up on their quest to charge McCabe, or it could simply be an effort to forestall attempts by a judge to get prosecutors to publicly reveal whether they are still trying to indict the former FBI official."
Snip
The DOJ then requested that they be excused from the Friday hearing but the federal judge was having none of that and instead moved up the hearing to Thursday afternoon.
"Walton issued a brief order Wednesday afternoon denying, without explanation, the government’s motion to get out of having a McCabe prosecutor on hand at the upcoming hearing. He also moved that session up to Thursday afternoon."
The DOJ doing what they do best under AG Barr delay and obstruct justice.
Politico article