No fewer than five House of Representative committees are investigating President Trump’s finances, raising the risk for Democrats that they will overreach.
Democrats have strong legal claim to obtain Trump’s personal and business records, especially his taxes. They also have on their side the historical precedent that presidents make those documents public. And they insist that they are proceeding with appropriate caution.
“This is not scattershot, this is strategic,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday. “They have their own authority, the purpose of their committees, tied to their oath of office.”
But, facing pressure from a Democratic base eager to see Trump impeached and competition from one another to lead the investigation, Democrats risk danger of rushing the document requests without all the necessary legal preparation, or of demanding information that isn’t relevant and seeming overly partisan. Either could give Trump grounds to accuse Democrats of partisan recklessness and strengthen his case to deny them documents.
A former Democratic congressional staffer investigative experience cautioned Democrats from rushing the process or running into each others’ work.
“I think it is going to step on itself at some point,” said the former staffer. “They do have to find their balance for what is there to look at without seeming partisan.”
The former staffer also worried that Democrats risked weakening their case by inundating the public with investigations into various Trump-related scandals.
“At some point having too much of it is just going to dull it all,” the former staffer said. “I think there’s so much there. It’s just like the rest of Trump.”
Democrats are seeking Trump’s financial information, not just to investigate potential business misconduct, but also to learn if he faces any conflicts of interest, particularly with Russia.
“I think the House is going to look into that, because of the concerns that there was a lot of Russian investment that would be a relevant fact,” said Sen. Mark Warner D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee leading its own bipartisan investigation into the 2016 election.
While governmental investigations into finances are common for security clearances, any probe of Trump could lead to a more open-ended review of his varied and complex business dealings.
House Democrats plan to use committee powers to try to obtain the president’s tax returns, bank records, internal financial information from his business, and perhaps testimony from the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg — from whom the House Judiciary Committee has already demanded documents.
An attorney for Weisselberg did not respond to a request for comment.
Cummings hedged when asked if Weisselberg might be asked to testify, saying that he was still carefully reviewing the last week’s testimony from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
When asked if he was concerned about the different investigations stepping on each others’ toes, Cummings replied emphatically that he was not.
“I’m not worried about that because we’re dealing with it,” he said.
While Cummings juggles his own committee’s work, pressure has also built on the House Ways and Means Committee to move forward in seeking Trump’s tax returns. Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., has yet to submit a request to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for Trump’s tax information.
“I don’t think I can even delve into that,” Neal said of the details of the request he is preparing. Asked when it would be submitted, he said, “When the product’s ready.”
Neal said he was running everything through lawyers with his committee as well the chief legal counsel for the House of Representatives. Though the law gives clear authority for the chairs of the Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee to request and obtain that information, they must also keep it private. The Treasury Department has yet to formally say whether it will cooperate with a request.
Republicans expect Mnuchin, a close Trump ally, to attempt to resist a request in court, and have begun to argue themselves that Democrats could violate law meant to safeguard taxpayer privacy.
“I think they would be testing legal precedent,” said Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas. “I don’t think I could ever be convinced that it’s the right thing to do, whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking House Ways and Means Committee Republican Kevin Brady of Texas have both criticized the impending request and any attempt to publicize any of Trump’s financial information. But both have also said they would either seek the same Trump tax return information if Democrats obtain it, or ask Democrats to read them in on the returns.
Separately, the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees have focused on Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, a German bank that has faced multiple recent investigations into whether it failed to combat Russian money laundering.
“Deutsche Bank is engaged in a productive dialogue with those Committees to determine the best and most appropriate way of assisting them in their official oversight functions,” a Deutsche Bank spokesperson said via email. “We remain committed to providing appropriate information to all authorized investigations.”
House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., has also promised to obtain Trump’s tax returns, though she does not have the same authority to request that information from the Treasury Department that Neal does.
Warner said that he welcomed House efforts to examine Trump’s financial ties further. He and committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., could not reach an agreement to review Trump’s finances in the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, he said.
“I would’ve done more focusing on finances,” Warner said. “So I welcome what the House is doing there.”
