President Trump moves to block banks from gaining access to his business records
Lawyers for President Trump, three of his adult children and seven Trump-related entities file a federal lawsuit in U.S. district court in Manhattan in an effort to stop Deutsche Bank and Capital One from turning over years of financial records to the House Intelligence and Financial Services Committees.
President Trump is about to get some insight into just what House Democrats are hoping to find from financial institutions he has worked with in the past.
According to a letter from Trump’s lawyers filed Wednesday evening, leaders of the House Intelligence and Financial Services committees have agreed to turn over parts of the subpoenas they sent to Deutsche Bank and Capitol One.
The letter from Trump attorney Patrick Strawbridge said the committees “have agreed to provide Plaintiffs with substantial portions of the subpoenas,” after Trump filed a formal discovery request and the two sides “engaged in additional efforts” to make a deal regarding what the committees would give the president’s legal team.
Trump first filed the lawsuit against Deutsche Bank and Capitol One in April, in an effort to prevent them from complying with subpoenas seeking his financial records. The president is arguing that they are unenforceable because they don’t have a legitimate legislative purpose. This is the same argument the Trump administration has made in denying a request for the president’s tax returns.
House Democrats began their quest for Trump's financial records after the president's former attorney Michael Cohen told Congress that Trump had inflated his net worth in financial statements.
The complaint called the subpoenas an effort to “harass” the president as a means “to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses and the private information of the president and his family.”
After Trump initiated the lawsuit, committee leaders Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called it “meritless.” Their committees then intervened in the case, making them defendants alongside the banks.
The lawsuit is asking the court for an injunction blocking the subpoenas, and an order declaring they are unlawful.
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As a result of the arrangement between Trump and the committees, Judge Edgardo Ramos agreed to cancel a conference in the case that had been scheduled for May 9, and the case will move forward.
Ramos has yet to decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction, which would block the subpoenas for the duration of the case.
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