President Donald Trump‘s attempt to stop finance firm Mazars USA from complying with a congressional subpoena is going to receive extra special attention. According to CNN, this tussle is going to be on the “fast track” in U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta‘s Washington, D.C. courtroom.
Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee, will preside over the case. The court docket shows that Mehta entered an order Thursday “notifying the parties that the court intends to advance Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction to trial on the merits” and consolidate issues into a hearing because the court “can discern no benefit from an additional round of legal arguments.”
The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed Mazars USA for Trump’s financial documents, including “Statements of Financial Condition.” During a recent congressional hearing, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen stated that Trump would use these statements to exaggerate the value of his assets. He would allegedly due so by inflating the number of residential units in properties and the number of floors in towers he owned. Democrats are looking into this to see if any of these alleged misrepresentations were criminal in nature. Trump had previously put Mazars USA “on notice,” saying that legal action could come if they complied with a subpoena.
Trump has alleged that the subpoena was issued “with the hope that it will turn up something that Democrats can use as a political tool against the President now and in the 2020 election.” Trump lawyers called the subpoena a “weapon of choice” for House Democrats in their “all-out political war against President Donald J. Trump.”
“Objections and/or Supplemental Memoranda” are due by Monday, May 13, while a hearing has reportedly set for May 14.
A recurring response to the news has been that this is “big” — the reason being is that it would counter the White House’s ability to use litigation to delay.
Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
[Image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images]
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