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NEW U.S. judge expresses astonishment at Trump arguments to block House subpoena for years of financial records from his accounting firm, signalling swift ruling. wapo.st/2vUETW7
“Is it your position that whether the president has properly reported his finances [under federal disclosure laws], that’s not subject to investigation by Congress?” U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta of Washington asked.
“Say a president was involved in some corrupt enterprise, you mean to tell me because he is the president of the United States, Congress would not have power to investigate?”
Mehta continued, what if “we’re talking about a presidential violation of a constitutional prohibition that only Congress has authority to approve,” such as the acceptance for emoluments or gifts from a foreign government?
Lead Trump atty William S. Consovoy accused Democrats of “assuming the powers of the Department of Justice” on a partisan crusade, arguing, “this is about the House being dissatisfied with the president, and wanting to prove by any means possible that he has done things wrong.”
Douglas N. Letter, House gen counsel, replied that Trump’s claim of freedom from congressional oversight marked “a total, basic and fundamental misunderstanding” of the constitution. Trump calls Congress “a nuisance … getting in his way while he’s trying to run the country.”
More Letter: Congress’s function of “informomg the public” a valid basis for the subpoena, citing past investigations into the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the origins of the Iraq War and former president Bill Clinton’s Whitewater land dealings.
He said the House also had obvious legislative purposes to oversee the function of laws governing the financial disclosure of public officials, avoiding conflicts of interests, preserving presidential records and preventing foreign influence over American officials.
“We need to know that. We need to know, is the president of the United States beholden to foreign interests, because they can hold things over his head?” Letter argued.
Letter acknowledged some demand by Congress might go to far: “I want to see the president’s diary when he was seven years old, or when she was 12 years old. That would probably stretch my argument to the breaking point.”
Consovoy scoffed at Congress's "unbridled" claims of investigative authority as "simply unimaginable." "They think maybe they can't get the president's blood. They can't get the president's diaries when he was 12," he said, shaking his head.
Consovoy said whether a president properly disclosed his finances was a “pure law enforcement function,” not a matter for Congress, whose fundamental duty he said is writing bills.
If Congress did try to enact tighter ethics or anti-corruption laws, "I don’t think there is any permutation of any of these proposals that could pass constitutional muster,” because they would interfere with the president’s execution of his duties, Consovoy said.
