full title:
Trump's lawyers question Congress' power to investigate him, battle House over demand for financial recordsTrump's lawyers question Congress' power to investigate him, battle House over demand for financial records
tulc(sipping coffee, watching the fight)Lawyers for President Donald Trump and the House clashed Tuesday in federal court over the extent of Congress' power to investigate him in the first legal test of Trump's effort to block sprawling probes of his finances and private business.
Trump wants a judge to prevent a congressional committee from obtaining financial records from his longtime accountant, Mazars USA. It is the first court test of how much information the half-dozen committees conducting investigations of Trump and his businesses might be able to obtain.
Trump and his namesake businesses filed a lawsuit last month asking U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to revoke a subpoena issued by the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Trump's lawyers accused the Democratic-controlled committee of abusing their power and said there was no legislative purpose for the request.
Mehta cited three possible reasons Tuesday to block the subpoena: that Congress has no general authority to investigate the president’s private life, that it can’t investigate for the sake of exposure; and that Congress can’t encroach on the powers of the other two branches.
Mehta didn't indicate whether he found those reasons sufficiently persuasive to block the House subpoena. But he suggested history might not be on the president's side, saying courts had not found that Congress overstepped its subpoena authority since 1880 and questioning Trump's lawyers about the basis for previous investigations of presidents.