Judge Neomi Rao is a cartoonishly right-wing judge. President Donald Trump’s appointee to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit once criticized a French court decision upholding a ban on “dwarf tossing.” She’s argued that much of the executive branch is unconstitutional, in part because members of Congress sometimes write letters to heads of agencies.
And yet, at a hearing Friday morning concerning President Trump’s ability to resist congressional oversight, even Rao appeared skeptical of many of the president’s lawyer’s arguments. Though the bulk of her questions suggested that Rao, a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and a former senior Trump White House official, will give her vote to Trump, even she grew impatient with many of Trump’s claims. And there is little risk that she picks up a majority.
The other two judges, Judges David Tatel and Patricia Millett, spent much of their morning eviscerating Trump’s arguments. So, while it remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will bail out Trump in Trump v. Mazars, his lawyers nevertheless had a bad day in the D.C. Circuit today.
View the complete July 12 article by Ian Millhiser on the ThinkProgress website here.