Elijah Cummings U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), now chair of House Oversight, appearing at a committee hearing in 2011. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ

President Donald Trump's apparent “disdain” for the investigations being led by congressional Democrats is no reason to block a subpoena seeking records from the president's longtime accounting firm Mazars USA, lawyers for the U.S. House Oversight Committee told a federal appeals court Monday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is weighing Trump's challenge to a subpoena that targets records that “may provide additional information on whether the president misstated his assets and liabilities on his financial statements,” the House lawyers said in their court filing. A federal trial judge in Washington earlier upheld the subpoena.

“Rather than respect the Oversight Committee's legitimate investigations into these serious issues, Mr. Trump and his companies have continually engaged in stonewalling intended to obstruct and undermine these inquiries,” Douglas Letter, general counsel to the House, said in Monday's filing. “This suit is one of Mr. Trump's many attempts to prevent Congress from obtaining critical information needed to make informed legislative judgments and perform meaningful oversight.”

Trump's lawyers at the firms Consovoy McCarthy and Michael Best & Friedrich are fighting in two federal appeals court to block subpoena seeking financial records related to Trump and his business empire. Trump's other appeal is pending in the Second Circuit, where a New York federal trial judge upheld subpoenas against Deutsche Bank and Capital One.

Attorneys for Trump argue in his Washington and New York appeals that House committees have exceeded their authority. They contend allowing enforcement of the subpoenas would mean Congress has no limit. In the D.C. Circuit, they raised a hypothetical that put the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in focus, and not the president.

Lawyers for the House argued Monday that the Mazars subpoena falls squarely in the broad power of Congress to investigate.

“This authority is a necessary element of Congress's Article I power to legislate: effective and wise legislation requires information,” Letter told the D.C. Circuit. “The Supreme Court has stressed in numerous rulings over many decades that Congress may compel responses to its subpoenas in furtherance of legitimate legislative purposes. These basic principles are undisputed, and they decide this case, as the district court held.”

Letter said the Oversight Committee “is looking into serious issues concerning government ethics and conflicts of interest affecting executive branch officials and agencies.”

Trump's lawyers will have another chance, by July 9, to convince the D.C. Circuit why the House Oversight subpoena should be quashed. The appeals panel—Judges David Tatel, Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao—are scheduled to hear oral argument July 12.

Mazars, represented by lawyers from the law firm Blank Rome, have not taken a position in the D.C. Circuit fight. A team from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld represents Deutsche Bank in Trump's appeal in the Second Circuit, and the firm Murphy & McGonigle represents Capital One.

Any ruling for or against Trump could go before the court sitting en banc, or either side could take the dispute directly to the Supreme Court for resolution. The justices have not yet ruled on a subpoena targeting Trump's financial records.

 

 

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