Merrick Garland is Not Investigating Trump's Taxes
The Claim
Merrick Garland is investigating Trump's tax evasion case.
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Emerging story
In September 2020, a Facebook post went viral that claimed that Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court – who was refused a confirmation hearing by the 2016 Senate – is investigating a tax evasion case against President Trump.
Users across social media continued to push this claim.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation has determined that this claim is false. Trump is not currently being charged with tax evasion. The district attorney’s office in Manhattan suggested in a court filing that has grounds to investigate Trump and his business for tax fraud; however, that case refers to Trump’s financial records that’s being fought in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
The Facebook post refers to efforts made by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to review Trump’s financial information. Back in April 2019, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee looked at multiple years of Trump’s financial information from an accounting firm that prepared Trump’s financial statements. Trump then sued to keep the records private. Trump lost the case. However, he appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where Garland served as chief judge.
As a result of the chain of events, Newsweek reported that Trump’s subpoena would then be directed to Merrick Garland. Vanity Fair then published a story about this as well.
The case never made it to Garland. In October 2019, a court ruled that the House committee couldn’t subpoena Trump’s records.
However, the case then came to the Supreme Court, which said that the House could subpoena the records if it met certain criteria. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the appeals court, where it is now being briefed by a three-judge panel that does not include Garland.
