Thread by @BritainEakin

Good morning from the D.C. District Court! I'm camped out in the media room and will be live tweeting the 11 a.m. hearing before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta regarding POTUS' effort to block a House subpoena for some of his financial records. @CourthouseNews

Mehta had wanted to consolidate the proceedings and advance to trial on the merits. POTUS, however, objects to that. Per a minute order late yesterday, Mehta said the hearing will proceed and the court will take up those objections.

The hearing is underway! The video is dark in the media room, however, so we've only got audio.

Mehta will not be ruling from the bench today, he says straight away, contrary to media reports implying as such. The issues presented today are serious, Mehta says. "No judge would make a hasty decision on such important issues for the sake of expediency."

William Consovoy is up now. Reiterates arguments made in the complaint/briefs: Says the House comm. subpoena lacks a legislative purpose and is therefore invalid.

Consovoy: Cummings has made clear that this is not about legislation. "They want to know if there was wrongdoing."

Consovoy is arguing that because the president is not a federal agency, Congress cannot investigate his financial records. Mehta responds: You mean to tell me that because he's the president of the United States Congress has no authority to investigate?"

Consovoy says Congress can't engage in law enforcement actions/investigations, which he says is what the subpoena for 8 years of financial records from various Trump entities held by Mazars amounts to.

Mehta wants to know if in Consovoy's view, the Watergate investigation went beyond the scope of Congress' constitutional authority. Consovoy: "I'd have to look at the basis." Mehta responds: they were looking at violations of criminal law, it was pretty straight forward.

Consovoy insists that the basis for a congressional subpoena is a "legislative purpose." Mehta suggests the test doesn't require Congress to point to any concrete legislation. Rather, it's a subject-matter test, on which legislation could be made.

Mehta wonders whether he should presume for now that what Congress is doing is not unconstitutional. Consovoy says the court will have to get there eventually and at some point address what the legitimate legislative purpose of the subpoena is.

Mehta suggests that he's being asked to do something he's specifically prohibited from doing: "I can't look to Congress' motives." Even, he adds, if the president thinks the congressional purpose is wrong. Consovoy says he's not asking the judge to look at motive.

Mehta is now pondering what role, if any, he has in assessing whether the financial records Rep. Cummings requested is relevant to any congressional purpose. Consovoy says court should determine whether the purpose is law enforcement, which would be prohibited, or legislative.

Mehta: " This isn't an APA case, but it feels like one." He wants to know what Consovoy wants beyond what's in the public record. "Because we're not going to drag this out." Consovoy: If we get what we ask for could be done w/in a week or two.

Mehta is really pressing on what more Consovoy wants before he rules on the merits. Says he's read all the case law, the relevant cases, the facts. Says the primary arguments have already been made. Sometimes, Mehta said, fewer words are better.

Douglas Letter, general counsel for the House, is up now.

Mehta presses Little off the bat on why there is no statement as to the scope and subject matter of any House investigation. "It really does open the door, it seems to me, to the accusation that this really is sort of an effort - if not to harass the president ...

... then to get into his private affairs for political purposes." Mehta says there are no clear lines drawn to test the validity of what the House Oversight Committee is doing.

Little responds: There are documents in the public records. It's not like the committee issued the subpoena and then went silent. Cummings has said some things clearly: docs given by Michael Cohen show there might be violations of Ethics in Government Act.

Little says the Ethics in Government Act requires the president to do an annual disclosure form. That reminds Mehta he needs to ask for an extension (laughter). Little says if the president is ignoring that, then maybe Congress needs to change the law (i.e. legislative purpose).

Little raises the example of the Presidential Records Act as an example of how Congress can regulate the president to counter Consovoy's arguments. For many years presidents destroyed records. "We learned from Nixon that that was no good," Little said.

Mehta presses Little on that, says it's a broad proposition. "Is there anything about the president's private life that you think is off limits to Congress?"

Little: asking for the president's diary from when he was 7 or 12 years old "would probably stretch my arguments to the breaking point." Fortunately, he adds, we're nowhere near that today.

Little gives an example of what Congress can look into: Whether Trump removed himself from the Trump International Hotel lease, or is profiting from it. "Clearly Congress can look into that."

Consovoy had said he wants an MOU between the House Oversight comm. and other House committees. Little says he would be happy to provide it to the court under seal, says it has nothing to do with Mazars, rather it's about info sharing among committees.

Little urges the court to go ahead and consolidate and rule on the merits. "There is only a legal issue here. There's no discovery that is either possible or relevant." SCOTUS precedent prevents the judge from looking at motive, he adds. "We think it should be decided quickly."

Little: "Any delay here undermines the House's ability to do what the Constitution allows it to do." The target of the subpoena doesn't get to determine its scope. "That's for Congress and Congress alone to do." Further briefing in the case is unnecessary, he adds.

Consovoy is back up for rebuttal, addresses the scope of what the House says the limits are for what it can subpoena. "I think I heard maybe they can't get the president's blood. And maybe they can't get his diary from when he was 12." Consovoy calls this unfathomable.

Consovoy is arguing that any records requested must be pertinent to legislation. What the committee can't do is investigate an individual, then take legislative steps if something bad is uncovered. That, he adds, crosses a line.

Letter is back up. Mehta wants to know why the committee can investigate whether POTUS committed crimes before he was president. Letter: We need to know if the president of the United States is beholden to foreign interests that can blackmail him.

And that's a wrap. Mehta will leave the record open until the 18th for the parties to submit additional evidence. There will be no discovery and no further briefing in the case before he rules. Thank you for joining me today!

Correction: The attorney for the House Oversight Committee is Doug Letter. I inadvertently referred to him as Little in several instances.