U.S. District Court Judge Edgardo Ramos ruled against Donald Trump and his children on Wednesday and said that Deutsche Bank and Capitol One can turn over their financial documents to Congress in response to subpoenas. Both organizations had earlier agreed to provide the information requested by Congress, but Trump sued to block the action on claims of personal privacy; but Judge Ramos ruled against Trump and specifically supported the idea that Congress has the right to conduct investigations of the executive branch.
CNBC reports that this loss follows the ruling of another federal judge on Monday, who ruled that Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, must turn over subpoenaed financial records. It also follows a morning hearing in which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was battered by the reveal of an internal IRS memo showing that the agency believed there was no basis for withholding Trump’s tax forms from Congress.
Trump has now lost his first court case over his financial records. He has lost his first case over his bank loans. He seems to be on his way to losing over his tax forms, and even if Mnuchin falls on his sword for Trump, New York state has just passed a law providing Congress with an alternative path to obtaining the information it’s seeking. It seems a near certainty that Trump will appeal all these rulings. But the brevity and sharpness of the decisions makes it seem very unlikely that they will be reversed at the appeals court level.
The Deutsche Bank data could be particularly interesting, because testimony from Michael Cohen indicated that Trump lied on bank loan applications made to Deutsche Bank at a time when no other bank was willing to extend him credit. If Trump did exaggerate his assets and hide his debts, as Cohen suggested, Trump would be guilty of exactly the same kind of felony bank fraud that earned his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort a prison sentence.
Trump may believe he can stonewall Congress and deny it access to the information it needs. But judges are increasingly showing that he’s wrong.