Judge sides with House Democrats, orders accounting firm to turn over Trump's financial records

A federal district judge in D.C. on Monday rejected an attempt by Donald Trump’s lawyers to prevent an accounting firm from turning over 10 years of Trump’s financial records in response to a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee. U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta also declined to stay his opinion pending appeal, as Trump’s lawyers had requested, due to the fact that he believed their argument was unlikely to prevail in a higher court. 

Mehta fundamentally argued that courts have to assume that Congress is utilizing its investigative powers constitutionally. “The binding principle that emerges from these judicial decisions is that courts must presume Congress is acting in furtherance of its constitutional responsibility to legislate and must defer to congressional judgments about what Congress needs to carry out that purpose,” Mehta wrote, concluding that the House Oversight Committee had “facially valid legislative purposes” for requesting the financial records from Mazars USA. “Applying those principles here compels the conclusion that President Trump cannot block the subpoena to Mazars.”

Trump’s lawyers got their behinds handed to them in court last week during oral arguments. The fact that Mehta refused to stay his opinion while litigation continues is a blow to Trump’s entire strategy of stalling and stonewalling congressional investigations into irrelevance.