NY judge denies Trump bid to block House Deutsche Bank subpoenas
May 22 2019
A Manhattan federal judge has denied a bid by President Donald Trump and his companies to block congressional subpoenas on two banks to obtain years worth of financial records.
The ruling Wednesday by District Judge Edgardo Ramos in Manhattan federal court to deny injunctions on Deutsche Bank and Capital One, which have done business with Trump and his businesses, and which received subpoenas from two House of Representatives committees, is the latest setback for efforts by Trump lawyers to prevent exposure of his financial records.
The ruling comes just days after a federal judge in Washington, DC, found that Trump can’t stop Mazars, Trump’s accounting firm, from complying with another congressional subpoena for Trump’s financial records. His lawyers are appealing that ruling.
Attorneys for Trump and his companies have argued that the congressional committees are overstepping their boundaries by issuing subpoenas for private financial records pertaining to Trump and his family members.
But an attorney for the House Intelligence and Financial Services committees, which issued the subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One, argued before Ramos that the committees want the records to determine if Russian oligarchs are using the American banking system to launder money – and if foreign money is being used to curry favor with top-level government officials.
“If that is true – if they are subject to that kind of influence by a foreign power, then the public interest is that we know as fast as possible,” said Douglas Letter, general counsel for the House of Representatives