House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought against him by President Trump and his businesses.
“The president has a long history of trying to use baseless lawsuits to attack his adversaries, but there is simply no valid legal basis to interfere with this duly authorized subpoena from Congress,” Cummings said in a statement. “This complaint reads more like political talking points than a reasoned legal brief, and it contains a litany of inaccurate information. The White House is engaged in unprecedented stonewalling on all fronts, and they have refused to produce a single document or witness to the Oversight Committee during this entire year.”
Trump and House Democrats have been at an impasse over the president’s financial records. After Cummings issued a subpoena last week to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, in an effort to obtain 10 years of the president’s financial records, Trump’s lawyers argued Congress only has the authority to conduct oversight and investigations in order to enact legislation.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Investigations are legitimate only insofar as they further some legitimate legislative purpose,” the president’s lawyers wrote, also accusing Cummings of abusing his power by “assuming the powers of the Department of Justice.”
Cummings originally requested the information from Mazars in March after Trump’s former longtime attorney Michael Cohen testified that the president misrepresented his assets. Cummings asked for Mazars to provide financial reports and communications between Trump and the accounting firm.
“The Committee has full authority to investigate whether the president may have engaged in illegal conduct before and during his tenure in office, to determine whether he has undisclosed conflicts of interest that may impair his ability to make impartial policy decisions, to assess whether he is complying with the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution, and to review whether he has accurately reported his finances to the Office of Government Ethics and other federal entities,” Cummings wrote in an April 12 memo to members of the committee, notifying them of the forthcoming subpoena.
