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A federal appeals court has ruled that the U.S President Donald Trump must obey Congress by releasing 8-year’s worth of tax returns. Judges in the panel denied for the 2^nd time the U.S president’s effort to stop his accounting firm from releasing the financial records to the House oversight committee. Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow said the president would appeal to the U.S Supreme Court. The 8-3 vote by the U.S Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected Trump’s request to rehear arguments that the subpoena to Mazars LLP was illegitimate. It brings Democrats closer to shedding light on his business interests and how he built his fortune. The committee subpoenaed Mazars this year and said it needed the records to determine whether or not Trump complied with laws requiring disclosure of his assets.

Point to be noted that Trump broke with a decades-old convention of candidates releasing their tax returns to the public while campaigning for the presidency in 2016. Trump sued the House panel in April, arguing that its subpoena exceeded limits on investigative power of the U.S Congress. He said the true motive for the subpoena was to expose private financial information. Trump said with the hope that it will turn up something that Democrats can use as a political tool against the president. It is noteworthy that a lower court judge ruled against Trump in May. The judge said the documents might assist Congress in passing laws and performing other core functions.

A federal court waded into the tussle in May decision for the first time regarding how far Congress can go in investigating Trump and his business affairs. It obviously marked an important victory for House Democrats. A 3-judge panel of DC circuit judges, in a 2-1 ruling, upheld the lower court judge in October. Judge David Tatel said the committee possesses the authority under both the house rules and the constitution to issue the subpoena, and Mazars must comply. Judge Neomi Rao was appointed by Trump to the DC appeals court and dissented from the October decision. Rao and another Trump appointee to the court, Gregory Katsas voted to rehear the case. They were joined by Karen Henderson (an appointee of former President George H W Bush).