Donald Trump has had a tough few weeks and things just got a hell of a lot worse.
According to new reporting from Reuters, a U.S. appeals court ultimately upheld a congressional subpoena that seeks financial records from former President Donald Trump’s accounting firm Mazars — though, the court did note that some requests made by lawmakers went a bit too far.
The bombshell new report reads:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously ruled that the Democratic-controlled House Oversight Committee can obtain records from a period surrounding Trump’s 2016 campaign and his time in office.
The court said the subpoena’s scope was ‘overbroad’ for many of the records, including some related to the federal lease for Trump’s former Washington, D.C., hotel. It said lawmakers can only subpoena documents closely tied to legislation they are considering.”
A lawyer for both former President Trump and Mazars spokesperson did not respond to requests for comments on the matter.
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Like pretty much everything else going against him right now (or ever, honestly) the disgraced, one-term, twice-impeached president has railed against this investigation as a politically motivated witch hunt against him. Trump and his legal team attempted to make numerous arguments against the subpoenas and the probe as a whole, including an argument that the subpoenaed information could not be used for legislation, but it was all futile as today’s ruling by the court completely rejected the ex-president’s desperate defenses.
According to Reuters, this bombshell ruling will now allow the House Committee to get their hands on some of the financial records they were seeking in connection to the Trump hotel lease, “as well as records tied to allegations that Trump violated financial disclosure laws and may have breached the Constitution’s ’emoluments’ clause, which prevents federal officeholders from accepting payments from foreign governments without congressional approval.”
“The appeals court also found that a test created by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 concerning Congress seeking papers from sitting presidents applies in this case, although Trump is no longer in office,” the report reads.
Subpoenas for Trump’s financial records were first issued by the House Oversight Committee back in 2019 and instantly ignited a panicked legal challenge from Donald Trump, who was still president at the time.
“U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington last year found Mazars should turn over some but not all of the financial records the House committee sought,” Reuters reports.
Read the full report here.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
