President Donald Trump’s lawyers issued a legal threat to his longterm accounting firm in a letter warning them not to comply with the Congressional subpoena for his financial records, Politico reports.
Trump lawyers William S. Consovoy and Stefan Passantino warned the firm Mazars USA not to comply with a subpoena issued by House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, who is seeking 10 years of Trump’s financial records related to his business, revocable trust, and other subsidiaries.
“It is no secret that the Democrat Party has decided to use its new House majority to launch a flood of investigations into the president’s personal affairs in hopes of using anything they can find to damage him politically,” the attorneys wrote in a letter to Mazars’ outside counsel Jerry Bernstein before the subpoena for formally served to the firm.
The lawyers issued an implied legal threat, warning the firm that it is “on notice.”
“The House Oversight Committee is not a miniature Department of Justice, charged with investigating and prosecuting potential federal crimes. It is a legislative body, not ‘a law enforcement or trial agency,’ and the chairman’s attempt to assume for Congress the role of police, prosecutor, and judge is unconstitutional,” they wrote.
Mazars asked for the subpoena:
Cummings said Monday that he is issuing a “friendly subpoena” to Mazars because the firm requested to receive a subpoena before providing the records, CNN reported.
The move drew a complaint from tireless Trump defender Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who serves as the committee’s ranking member.
"Chairman Cummings's announcement of a subpoena to a private company to pry into the President's personal finances is an astonishing abuse of this Committee's authority and a disgraceful departure from the fair and legitimate oversight he promised,” he said in a statement.
Cummings responded by noting that the records are “are key to the committee’s ongoing investigations of matters squarely within our jurisdiction,” including whether Trump failed to disclose conflicts of interest before becoming president.
“[Jordan] is embarking on an unprecedented path of partisanship that all members of the House of Representatives should find concerning because it could have a detrimental impact on Congress’ ability to exercise its core constitutional oversight responsibilities for years to come,” Cummings wrote.
House Dems also subpoenaed Trump’s bank:
The House Intelligence and Financial Services Committees subpoenaed Deutsche Bank and several other Trump lenders Monday for information about his finances, The New York Times reported.
Deutsche Bank has loaned Trump more than $2 billion even as other major financial firms refused to do business with him after a string of bankruptcies.
The House Ways and Means Committee has also requested Trump's tax returns from the IRS, which is required by law to provide them.
