WASHINGTON – A powerful House committee and New York prosecutors separately investigating President Donald Trump's financial dealings urged the Supreme Court Thursday to affirm their right to examine years of his tax returns and financial records.
Douglas Letter, the House of Representatives' legal counsel, argued that Trump’s legal team has not “demonstrated that any harm they will suffer if Mazars responds to the subpoena outweighs the severe harm that Congress would suffer by being deprived of information it urgently needs to exercise its constitutional functions.”
Story continuesLast week's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit called for Mazars USA to release the records to the House committee by Nov. 20. But Chief Justice John Roberts agreed to a brief delay this week while the two sides file legal papers in the dispute. Trump dropped the practice of past presidents and presidential candidates in 2016 when he refused to release his tax returns, claiming his hands were tied because of a federal audit. He since has continued to maintain their secrecy.
"For the first time in our nation's history, a state or local prosecutor has launched a criminal investigation of the president of the United States and subjected him to coercive criminal process," he wrote. Vance argued that a swift resolution of his case is “essential to avoid further disruption of the grand jury’s ongoing investigation.”
The two legal efforts in the D.C. and Manhattan federal appeals courts to get financial records are progressing amid other investigations, including the ongoing House impeachment proceeding. That investigation centers on whether Trump delayed nearly $400 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine while pressing for investigations into the Ukrainian business dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a 2020 presidential campaign rival.
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