Donald Trump didn’t get the judge he wanted to oversee a legal challenge to House Democrats who want to see the president’s New York state tax records. But Trump got the next best thing — a jurist he appointed to the bench earlier this year.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden in Washington declined to preside over the president’s lawsuit. Trump’s attorneys had asked for McFadden, who the president appointed two years ago, because the judge was handling an earlier lawsuit by the same group of Democrats seeking Trump’s federal returns.

However, in a bench ruling the same day, McFadden said the cases didn’t sufficiently overlap to be deemed related. He sent the state-tax case back for random reassignment at the courthouse. Trump has appointed four of the 24 judges on the federal court in Washington.

On Friday morning, the matter of Trump v. Committee on Ways and Means was assigned to Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee who took the bench just last month. No hearings have been scheduled.

Bloomberg News