In a 2-1 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled it didn’t have the constitutional authority to resolve the standoff between the House Judiciary Committee and the White House.

“We cannot decide this case without declaring the actions of one or the other [branches of government] unconstitutional,” appellate Judge Thomas Griffith wrote in the opinion, determining the federal judiciary should stay out of the fight between Congress and the President. “If federal courts were to swoop in to rescue Congress whenever its constitutional tools failed, it would not just supplement the political process; it would replace that process with one in which unelected judges become the perpetual ‘overseer[s]’ of our […]