David S. Tatel


David S. Tatel is an American jurist and a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1994.

Education and career

Tatel received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan and his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School. Following law school, he served as an instructor at the University of Michigan Law School and then joined Sidley Austin in Chicago. Since then, he served as founding director of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Director of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Director of the Office for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Carter Administration. Returning to private practice in 1979, Tatel joined Hogan & Hartson, where he founded and headed the firm's education practice until his appointment to the D.C. Circuit. While on sabbatical from Hogan & Hartson, Tatel spent a year as a lecturer at Stanford Law School. He also previously served as Acting General Counsel for the Legal Services Corporation.

Federal judicial service

Tatel was nominated by President Bill Clinton on June 20, 1994, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated by Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 6, 1994 by a voice vote, and received commission on October 7, 1994.
In June 2017, Tatel found the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act did not prevent the survivors of a Holocaust victim from suing to recover art stolen by Nazi plunderers, over the partial dissent of Senior Judge A. Raymond Randolph.
In October 2019, Tatel filed the majority opinion in Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, finding that the United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform had the authority to compel Mazars USA, via subpoena, to produce documents relating to the personal financial information of President Donald Trump, including several years' worth of income tax returns. That decision was vacated and remanded, 7-2, by the SCOTUS in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts on July 9, 2020. Justices Alito and Thomas dissented with the remand, with the former citing:
Congress' legislative powers do not authorize it to engage in a nationwide inquisition with whatever resources it chooses to appropriate for itself. The majority's solution—a nonexhaustive four-factor test of uncertain origin—is better than nothing. But the power that Congress seeks to exercise here has even less basis in the Constitution than the majority supposes. I would reverse in full because the power to subpoena private, nonofficial documents is not a necessary implication of Congress' legislative powers. If Congress wishes to obtain these documents, it should proceed through the impeachment power. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

Personal life

Tatel serves as co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Science, Technology, and Law and is a board member of Associated Universities, Inc. and the Federal Judicial Center. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Education. He chaired the Board of The Spencer Foundation from 1990 to 1997 and the Board of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching from 2005 to 2009. Tatel and his wife, Edith, have had four children and eight grandchildren.
Tatel has been blind since 1972 due to retinitis pigmentosa.

Selected publications and speeches