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President Trump Sues to Block Subpoena Seeking Information About Finances

President Trump and businesses file lawsuit to keep House from obtaining financial records

President Donald Trump and his businesses have filed a federal lawsuit to block the House Oversight and Reform Committee from obtaining financial records from his company, according to multiple reports.

The complaint filed by Trump's lawyers accuse House Democrats of having "declared all-out political war" on the president and are using subpoenas as "their weapon of choice." The 14-page lawsuit asks a federal court to block the Trump Organization's accounting firm, Mazars USA, from turning over the company's financial records to Congress. The lawsuit argues that the subpoena issued last week by the House Oversight Committee for Mazars to turn over eight years of financial documents to congressional investigators, lacked a "legitimate legislative purpose."

"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 states. "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."

Lawyers for the president are asking for the House's subpoena to be invalidated and for the court to block Mazars from producing the requested information.

"We will not allow congressional presidential harassment to go unanswered," said Jay Sekulow, counsel to the president.

Elijah Cummings (D-Md), the chairman for the Oversight committee said the House was seeking Trump's financial documents in an effort to determine whether Trump accurately reported his finances. Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, told the committee in February that Trump routinely inflated his net worth in an effort to obtain loans.

Judge Amit Mehta has been assigned the case.

“We are following up on specific allegations regarding the president’s actions based on corroborating documents obtained by the committee, and we will continue our efforts to conduct credible, robust and independent oversight,” Cummings said in the request for documents from the Trump Organization's accounting firm.

The subpoena is in addition to a request the House Ways and Means Committee made to the Internal Revenue Service for Trump's tax returns. Lawmakers say they're looking for any possible wrongdoing by President Trump.

Photo: Getty Images


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