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A federal judge is ordering former President Donald Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, to release financial documents related to House Oversight Committee’s investigations.
United States District Judge Amit Mehta ruled on Wednesday that the Committee is entitled to records of President Trump’s lease of the Trump Hotel in the nation’s capital and foreign emoluments. Anything related to the former President’s financial disclosures is protected under the constitution.
The same judge ruled two years ago that the House Oversight Committee was eligible to receive all of the financial records requested.
However, Mehta has now ruled that documents pertaining to broader investigations into the former president’s financial disclosures are shielded due to the separation of powers concerns.
“Due to its broad, invasive nature, the subpoena poses an appreciable risk to the separation of powers,” the judge wrote. “In the current polarized political climate, it is not difficult to imagine the incentives a Congress would have to threaten or influence a sitting President with a similarly robust subpoena, issued after he leaves office, in order to ‘aggrandize itself at the President’s expense.’ In the Court’s view, this not-insignificant risk to the institution of the presidency outweighs the Committee’s incremental legislative need for the material subpoenaed from Mazars.”
House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney suggested that the group may appeal.
“Today’s district court opinion recognized that the Oversight Committee is entitled to a broad set of President Trump’s financial records as part of our critical investigation aimed at preventing presidential conflicts of interest, self-dealing, and constitutional violations,” Maloney said. “While it is disappointing that the Court. despite finding that the entire subpoena served valid legislative purposes, narrowed the subpoena in some respects, the Committee is actively considering next steps.”
Mehta ordered Mazars to release subpoenaed documents from 2017 and 2018 related to Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization, and Trump Old Post Office LLC pursuant to the committee’s investigation into the hotel’s lease, as well as records from the same time period related to emoluments.
