Access to Trump’s financial records will be permitted to democrats, but only partially. A judge has given a verdict and it is limited access to Donald Trump’s financial dealings in relation to his income from overseas businesses. There’s a fear that the 45th US President violated the Constitution.
House committee has been on the tail of former POTUS for a while now, and today they can celebrate a small victory. A federal judge in DC allowed access to Trump’s financial records, but only partially. For a long time, Trump and his accounting firm have been avoiding reporting and dealings they might have as they were not obligated to do so. But, this is not a signal for the ex-president to be concerned as the limitations are there.
The main focus of the investigation that revolves around Trump’s finances is the federal lease he received on his Washington hotel. Furthermore, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, allowed the House committee to talk to Mazars, the accounting firm, on matters of foreign emoluments that are not allowed by the Constitution. Judge also explained why there are limitations to what is allowed to the committee: “The committee does not adequately explain why other sources of information — outside President Trump’s personal papers — could not reasonably provide Congress the information it needs.”
At the same time, the House committee believes that they should have received broader authorization: “While it is disappointing that the Court, despite finding that the entire subpoena served valid legislative purposes, narrowed the subpoena in some respects, the Committee is actively considering next steps.”
Judge Mehta was adamant that a former president needs to receive more protection than an ordinary citizen would. This is why it is not allowed for the committee to access Trump’s financial records older than 2017. House committee wanted to have access to everything Donald Trump id as far back as in 2011. The judge concluded that there’s no need to dig that deep, as before 2017 trump wasn’t the president and thus couldn’t have violated the Constitution in that regard.
The reason why the committee decided to act in the first place was the statement of one of Trump’s former lawyers. The statement from Michael Cohen that shook Trump to a degree goes as following: “Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.”
Donald Trump still hasn’t issued a statement regarding the latest ruling. In the past, he and his team of lawyers battled the committee attempts. Considering their history on this matter we can expect that there will be an appeal over this ruling. After all, this is not in the best interest of the 45th US President. One of his aides had this to say about the latest news about this case: “We will be appealing like we have been for about six years.” What this means is that the case is nowhere near being resolved, so we could all sit tight and wait for the next move; and there will be movement in the near future for sure.
Nina Smith 