Former President Donald J. Trump's lawyer asked a federal appeals court on Monday to overturn a congressional subpoena seeking years of financial records from his accounting firm, arguing that the demand is too broad and could open the door for lawmakers to routinely harass and intimidate future presidents.
However, Douglas Letter, a lawyer representing the House of Representatives, requested the appeals court to sustain the subpoena, including lifting the restrictions imposed by a district court judge in August. He said that the subpoena was completely within Congress's power, especially because the House reissued it after Trump left office, The New York Times reported.
US appeals court hears Trump financial case
Those opposing viewpoints in the long-running case, which reached the Supreme Court in 2020 before being returned to lower courts to be heard again under a stricter legal standard, were on display on Monday during a nearly two-hour oral argument before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
The judges' questions - Ketanji Brown Jackson, Judith W. Rogers, and Sri Srinivasan - offered no indication that they were inclined to overturn the subpoena. However, the judges spent a significant amount of time determining if there was a basis to reduce the scope of the subpoena, such as the lowering some of the years of papers sought by Congress; and if so, the question on where to draw the line still remains unknown.
Per The Hill, the Supreme Court overturned a string of lower-court victories for the committee last year, declaring that such interbranch legal issues over access to a president's personal information should be considered more carefully by courts.
Trump and the House committee have filed appeals against various aspects of Mehta's decision. Trump's attorneys argue that the subpoena is politically motivated and has no genuine legislative purpose and that enforcing it will disrupt the government's balance of powers.
Meanwhile, the committee is still looking for records that Mehta ruled which should be excluded from the scope of the subpoena, such as Trump's personal financial records from before he became president, arguing that they are needed to inform legislation that could help prevent conflicts of interest in the White House.
Appeals court questions scope of House request for Trump's financial records
On Monday, the appeals court panel looked unsure about how to weigh legislators' legislative need for the documents against the requirement for secrecy, if any, that a former president maintains after leaving office.
Allowing the House to demand financial documents from previous presidents and disclose them "to the whole world," according to Donald Trump's lawyer, would give Congress too much clout over the executive, upsetting the balance of power.
Trump and House Democrats both filed appeals in August, after a district court ordered the former president's accountants at Mazars USA to turn over some of his financial documents while protecting others from exposure. It's one of numerous high-stakes fights between Democrats and Trump, who is considering a presidential candidacy in 2024.
Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned Trump's allegation that the House was only looking for leverage. The House claims to be investigating whether its procedure for assessing presidents' possible conflicts of interest needs to be improved. Lawmakers addressed the matter when the Trump Organization leased the Old Post Office federal facility in Washington, DC, and transformed it into a luxury hotel, as per Bloomberg.
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