Trump sues in bid to block congressional subpoena of financial records

[ehrnst]

Source: Washington Post

President Trump and his business on Monday sued House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of his financial records.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent Trump’s accounting firm from complying with what his lawyers say is an improper use of subpoena power by congressional Democrats.

“Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s personal finances, businesses, and even his family,” the filing by Trump claims. “Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan legislation that would actually benefit Americans, House Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically.”

The filing, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, further escalates a clash between the White House and the Democratic House over congressional oversight.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-sues-in-bid-to-block-congressional-subpoena-of-financial-records/2019/04/22/a98de3d0-6500-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html

[True Blue American]

1. Really terrified, huh?:)

[cstanleytech]

2. Edit: Moved to other earlier thread as this is a dupe thread.

[Gothmog]

3. This will be fun to watch

Last edited Mon Apr 22, 2019, 09:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

[sheshe2]

26. Ivanka

[IronLionZion]

4. Guiltiest looking dude I've ever seen

Obviously hiding something

[durablend]

5. Totally sounds innocent to me...

[Mc Mike]

6. Stonewall. Cover up.

[ancianita]

7. Using courts to circumvent oversight of Congress and The People is the work of dictators.

[NYMinute]

8. I hope he doesn't succeed in the courts

Any justice siding with Trump will have a terrible legacy.

[TeamPooka]

9. Show America how much you have to hide.

[louis-t]

10. How does this asshole find any time to do presidentin?

Between golf, tweeting, sitting on the shitter, suing people, yelling at the media, plotting his revenge against people who aren't nice to him, how can anyone say "Look at all he's done for us"?

[Perseus]

13. I said it a long time ago, he doesn't have time for that, he is a decoy

and the people behind him cook up the treasonous ideas (Stephen Miller), he just goes along with it many times not understanding what he is agreeing to, and because he lacks any concept of consequences, he just picks up his pen and signs.

[joshdawg]

28. More like "Look at all he's done TO us."

[ScratchCat]

11. There is no legal issue here

The courts should simply decline to hear this suit. At every/any level, the ruling is easy - it is the authority of Congress to limit this power through law. There is nothing for a court to interpret. It doesn't even look like they are citing any law, its just PR nonsense.

[2naSalit]

15. Another tattle-tale sign of BS...

if this is true, that he filed as a "private citizen" which he is not and hasn't been since taking office. So that, right there defeats any claims of "standing" period. Along with the reasons you mentioned.

[onenote]

18. The complaint reads as a political screed, not a legal argument

And I doubt the judge receiving it will be amused.

You don't win over judges when you start out referring to the "Democrat Party" when the proper name is the Democratic Party. No one will be surprised that the lead counsel is a former Clarence Thomas clerk.

And the cases that they cite really don't help them. For example, while they cite the general proposition that the power of Congress to conduct investigations is not unlimited, they fail to cite the accompanying language from that case:

"We start with several basic premises on which there is general agreement. The power of the Congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power is broad. It encompasses inquiries concerning the administration of existing laws, as well as proposed or possibly needed statutes. It includes surveys of defects in our social, economic or political system for the purpose of enabling the Congress to remedy them. It comprehends probes into departments of the Federal Government to expose corruption, inefficiency or waste"

[Perseus]

12. I understand it is their duty to "defend", but they can refuse

The buffoon's lawyers should be disbarred, what a pack of shameless and unpatriotic people. When you understand the situation, when you know you are being asked to defend a criminal, a traitor, and you know the person IS, in fact, a criminal and a traitor (I repeat myself), you have the right to refuse the job, and you will unless you are made of the same filth, and your goal is to preserve criminality and treason.

[onenote]

17. Heaven help us if lawyers can be disbarred based on who they represent.

Seriously. What a ridiculous thing to suggest.

[ehrnst]

19. There would be no District Attorneys, then, would there?

Why should a government be able to disbar a lawyer for taking a case?

I agree that if a lawyer/firm brings huge numbers of suits that get turned away by judges that they should be fined for deliberately clogging the court system with frivolous lawsuits, but your suggestion isn't based in an understanding of the legal system...

[Texin]

21. A judge doesn't have to disbar anyone. They just have to refuse to hear the case

on the grounds that it's frivolously brought by the plaintiff.

[colsohlibgal]

14. He Must Be Terrified To Have Them Examined

Me Thinks he does protest too much......how sleazy and crooked they must be.

The law is not on his side, he should lose this fight and then we shall see what he desperately wants to hide.

He is a triple threat, dumb, crooked, and plain evil. Anyone supporting him has lost any capacity for critical thinking and/or a far right wing ideologue who would have proudly goose stepped for Hitler.

This is a pivot point for the USA.

[Pantagruel]

16. This should be a "no brainer"

Aside from the fact that innocent people don't fight disclosure this hard, do we really need to recap all the reasons, legal filings and common sense questions that have arisen around Trump's finances and can be reasonably solved by examining his financial records? This should be a "no brainer".

[onenote]

20. Fun facts on the Oversight Committee's use of subpoenas

(from Wikipedia):

In 1997, the Republican majority on the committee changed its rules to allow the chairman, Dan Burton (R-Indiana), to issue subpoenas without the consent of the committee's ranking Democrat. From 1997 to 2002, Burton used this authority to issue 1,052 unilateral subpoenas, many of them related to alleged misconduct by President Bill Clinton, at a cost of more than $35 million

By contrast, from 2003 to 2005, under the chairmanship of Tom Davis (R-Virginia), the committee issued only three subpoenas to the Bush administration.

After Republicans retook the House in the 2010 elections, the new chairman, Darrell Issa (R-California), escalated the use of subpoenas again, issuing more than 100 in four years during the Obama administration. That was more than the combined total issued by the previous three chairmen—Davis, Henry Waxman (D-California), and Edolphus Towns (D-New York)—from 2003 to 2010.

[riversedge]

23. geez, they are tossed out by the Repugs like candy at a parade.

[ck4829]

25. Indeed

[riversedge]

22. Jay Sekulow is still crying about 'presidental harassment...

............Trump’s private attorney, Jay Sekulow, issued a brief statement saying, “We will not allow Congressional Presidential harassment to go unanswered.”

In the suit, Trump’s attorneys wrote that the true purpose of this investigation was not governance, but political advantage: “Its goal is to expose Plaintiffs’ private financial information for the sake of exposure, with the hope that it will turn up something that Democrats can use as a political tool against the President now and in the 2020 election.”

The Trump Organization, Trump’s private business, is also listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Trump Organization officials declined to comment.

Trump himself still owns the business, though he says he has given up day-to-day control to his sons Eric and Donald Jr.

[ck4829]

24. Kick