Trump’s Lawyers, House Committees Reach Agreement to Delay Enforcing Subpoenas

Trump’s Lawyers, House Committees Reach Agreement to Delay Enforcing Subpoenas
President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn as he leaves the White House in Washington on May 20, 2019. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Photo via AP)
Janita Kan
5/25/2019
Updated:
5/26/2019

President Donald Trump reached an agreement with two House committees to delay the enforcement of subpoenas seeking his financial records from two banks.

In a joint court filing (pdf) on May 25, attorneys for President Donald Trump and the House Intelligence and Financial Services committees asked a federal court judge to put on hold the court proceedings, pending the outcome of an appeal case.

“The parties jointly ask this Court to stay further proceedings in this case until Plaintiff’s interlocutory appeal from the denial of their motion for a preliminary injunction is resolved,” the joint filing states.

The document further reads that “the parties have reached an agreement regarding compliance with and enforcement of the subpoenas during the pendency of Plaintiffs’ appeal.”

On May 22, District Judge Edgardo Ramos, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, refused to block the subpoenas served to the two banks requiring them to hand to Congress the president’s banking and financial records, including “records of every single checking withdrawal, credit-card swipe, or debit-card purchase—no matter how trivial or small—made by each and every member of the Trump family,” a lawsuit filed by the Trump family stated.

The lawsuit was filed at the end of April to block Deutsche Bank and Capital One from complying with the subpoenas. Trump’s lawyers argued that the Democrat-controlled House committees’ demands for records have no legitimate or lawful purpose and are so broad they would include transaction records on the Trump family’s personal shopping.

Following Ramos’s ruling, Trump’s lawyers filed an appeal on May 24 with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Trump, his children—Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump—and several of their companies to overturn the federal judge’s ruling (pdf).
President Donald Trump talks to reporters while departing the White House in Washington on May 24, 2019. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump talks to reporters while departing the White House in Washington on May 24, 2019. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The House committees’ subpoenas for Trump’s bank records are part of one of three investigations launched by key House committees in April. The other probes are seeking the president’s tax returns and the full declassification of the partially redacted Mueller report.

Since gaining the majority in the House of Representatives, House Democrats have initiated 10 inquiries targeting Trump as well as his family, business dealings, current and former associates, and White House staff.

Trump and Republicans view the investigations as a way to further obstruct Trump’s agenda, unearth embarrassing information on the president and his family, and score political points for the 2020 elections. In response, Trump has said he plans to fight “all the subpoenas” by House Democrats.

Days before the deal on the bank records, the House Intelligence committee struck a deal with the Justice Department in a standoff over a request for the full unredacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller and the underlying foreign intelligence and counterintelligence documents. The Justice Department agreed to turn over the underlying documents in exchange for a delay for an unspecified “enforcement action” by the committee.

Democrats have ramped up the intensity of their investigations of the president since Mueller concluded there is not enough evidence to establish that Trump colluded with Russia. Mueller also decided against charging the president with obstruction of justice.

In addition to Mueller, three separate investigations by House and Senate committees concluded there is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The House Intelligence Committee found that while there is no evidence of collusion by Trump, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer. Steele paid sourced with ties to the Kremlin for the intel he included in the dossier. The FBI used the dossier, without verifying its claims, as evidence to secure a warrant to spy on former Trump-campaign advisor Carter Page.

Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.