Federal judge joins Democrats in House to assign Trump's financial records

A Washington-based federal judge has sided with Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to enforce their subpoena in front of Trump Mazars USA, a major decision that breathes new life into the current efforts of US taxpayers. Democrats to investigate the president's financial transactions.

The subpoena is intended to provide access to a multitude of Trump financial documents dating back to 2011, including personal archives and archives of various companies and affiliated entities. The Democrats continued the summons after Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress in February that the president's accountants had systematically and unduly changed his financial statements – including some signed by Mazars – in order to misrepresent its assets and liabilities.

In his 41-page opinion, Judge Amit P. Mehta, appointed by Barack Obama, began by comparing President Trump's concerns about the congressional decision to those of President James Buchanan, claiming that he "had resumed fighting of his predecessor ".

And Mehta acknowledged that it was very likely that the documents obtained by House Democrats would flee quickly and become partisan political fodder.

"[T]The court is not naive to reality, "wrote Mehta, admitting that" some documents obtained from Mazars will be made public shortly after their publication. "

Mehta added that he was "well aware that this case concerns documents relating to the private and business affairs of the President of the United States," which goes back to long before he declared his candidacy.

But, said Mehta, the assignment of Democrats was within the congressional powers of investigation and oversight, which generally require that subpoenas serve "a valid legislative purpose". The judge pointed out that the investigation could reveal conflicts of interest at the White House, as well as possible violations of the clause relating to foreign emoluments or reporting obligations of the 1978 law on ethics in the government.

Mehta said he would not maintain his decision while waiting for the call, despite the risk of permanently compromising Trump's private financial information, in part because of the strong public interest for Democrats who want to get the records. This means that the subpoena will take effect within 7 days unless it is suspended by another court of appeal.

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"The courts have been grappling for over a century with the question of the scope of the investigative power of Congress," wrote Mehta. "The compelling principle that emerges from these judicial decisions is that the courts must presume that Congress is discharging its constitutional responsibility to legislate and must defer to Congressional judgments on the objectives that the Congress must to achieve this goal. "Congressional Investigative Authority .But these limits do not constitute a substantial constraint for the Congress."

The judge continued: "It is simply not inconceivable that a Constitution giving Congress the power to dismiss a president for reasons, including criminal behavior, deprives the Congress of its power to dissent. investigate his illegal behavior, past or present, even without formally opening an impeachment investigation. "

The president's legal team, in a case filed earlier this month, had asked the judge to ban Mazars from "enforcing or complying" with the April 15 summons.

Trump's lawyers quoted the Democrats as openly admitting that they wanted to use the power of summoning for political ends. "We will have to build an air traffic control tower to track all subpoenas from here to the White House," said one Democrat, another referring to a "subpoena gun" firing on the White House.

Trump's lawyers also claimed that the Mazars summons "has no legitimate legislative purpose, and constitutes an" unconstitutional attempt to exercise "police powers". "

But, Mehta wrote in his judgment, the standard for obtaining a valid summons to appear in Congress is not a difficult hurdle to clarify under the Supreme Court's precedent, and Democrats have easily shown that they were not just engaged in a "fishing expedition". The statements made by Democrats suggesting their political motives, said Mehta, did not automatically invalidate the subpoena.

"The Monitoring Committee has shown that it does not engage in a pure fishing expedition for the President's financial records," the judge wrote. "It is indisputable that the President had not initially set out debts in his public disclosure to the payments that Michael Cohen had made to alleged mistresses during the presidential campaign.Moreover, Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to violations of funding of the campaign resulting from these payments. "

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Trump's lawyers also noted that the House's oversight committee, led by President Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Is conducting several Trump-focused investigations.

"The Oversight Committee showed that he was not engaged in a pure fishing expedition for the President's financial records."

– Judge Amit P. Mehta of Washington District Court

"President Cummings confessed that he wanted to" investigate the presumed behavior of the president before and during his tenure "and" verify that he has correctly reported his finances to the Office of Government Ethics and to the government. " other federal entities. , & # 39; & # 39; Trump's lawyers wrote in the filing.

At the same time, Jim Jordan, a member of the House of Representatives' House of Representatives (R-Ohio) House of Representatives Committee, described the summons as "an unprecedented abuse of the power of the commission to subpoena to target and disclose the private financial information of the President of the United States ".

The Trump team's case came after the Cummings Committee issued several subpoenas to Mazars Accounting to obtain financial documents and audits prepared for Trump and its activities over the last decade.

Cummings also requested independent auditor's reports, annual statements and other documents related to Trump's finances covering the period from 2011 to 2018.

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Mazars then declared that it "would respect the judicial process and comply fully with its legal obligations".

The decision comes the same day that Trump ordered former White House lawyer Don McGahn not to attend a House Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday, citing an opinion from the Justice Department. that he could not be compelled to testify about his official duties.

In a statement released Monday afternoon, Sarah Sanders, press secretary at the White House, criticized the Democrats for pursuing Trump investigations, saying they wanted a "useless and unnecessary scrapping" to the following the investigation of the special advocate Robert Mueller – and describing the summons to appear. McGahn as part of this effort.

Bill Mears, Edward Lawrence, Brooke Singman and Kristin Brown of Fox News contributed to this article