The federal judge who was assigned to the Democrat-led House Ways and Means Committee’s lawsuit to obtain President Trump’s tax returns was appointed by Trump, contributed to his presidential bid, and served as a volunteer on his presidential transition team.
Judge Trevor McFadden was appointed by Trump to the U.S. District Court for D.C. in 2017. McFadden served as a deputy assistant attorney general at the start of the Trump administration.
McFadden made two donations to Trump’s presidential campaign totaling $1,000 and previously stated that he was just a “sporadic and unpaid volunteer” on Trump’s presidential transition team who helped with vetting potential nominees “approximately four hours every few weeks for two to three months.”
“I did not come into contact with Mr. Trump or any of the senior members of his campaign team. In fact, I do not know the president and have never met him in any capacity,” McFadden said in 2018.
Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal brought a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration yesterday over its unwillingness to hand over Trump’s tax returns. The complaint names Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, who declined to comply with Neal’s May subpoenas for six years of returns.
The Massachusetts Democrat contends that Section 6103(f) of U.S. statute obligates the Trump administration to turn over Trump’s tax returns because it states that “upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means … the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request.”
The complaint claims that the Trump administration has “mounted an extraordinary attack on the authority of Congress” and asked the court to order the agencies to comply.
McFadden ruled against Democrats in early June in their suit against the Trump administration over Trump’s plan to divert $1 billion directed to military salaries and other priorities to pay for border wall construction.
“Few ideas are more central to the American political tradition than the doctrine of separation of powers,” McFadden wrote in his opinion. “Our Founders emerged from the Revolution determined to establish a government incapable of repeating the tyranny from which the Thirteen Colonies escaped. They did so by splitting power across three branches of the federal government and by providing each the tools required to preserve control over its functions.”
McFadden said that “while the Constitution bestows upon Members of the House many powers, it does not grant them standing to hale the Executive Branch into court claiming a dilution of Congress’s legislative authority.”
McFadden has also already defended himself over his connections to Trump during a case involving British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier. Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian man mentioned in the dossier, filed a libel suit in late 2017 against BuzzFeed over its decision to publish the dossier early that year. Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm, which had then hired Steele, was subpoenaed as part of the case and wanted McFadden to recuse himself.
“I decline Fusion’s invitation to decide its motion based on the alleged connection between the motion and President Trump’s political interests,” McFadden wrote. “The President’s connection with me and his interest in this case are simply too tenuous to cause a reasonable observer to question my impartiality.”
