President Donald Trump took at shot at his former lawyer Michael Cohen on Monday morning in a lawsuit seeking to block House Democrats from using a subpoena to obtain Trump’s financial documents from an accounting firm. The subpoena came after Cohen told Congress that Trump falsified information in certain statements. Cohen has issued quite a statement in response to the lawsuit.
“We trust that the courts will deal with all issues fairly on the merits. We won’t dignify the personal accusations in the filings except to say that frivolous things said by frivolous people don’t deserve a serious response,” Cohen said in a statement through his attorney Lanny Davis. “The reasons for Mr. Trump’s desperate attempt to prevent his tax returns from being made public — like all prior presidents — is no mystery. Does anyone doubt he has something to hide?”
Trump’s lawsuit made mention of how House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) issued the subpoena after Cohen accused Trump of inflating his personal worth by overstating his assets. The complaint implied that Cohen can’t be trusted by describing him as “a felon who has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.” Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress for Trump’s benefit by misstating details related to 2016 negotiations for a possible Trump Tower in Moscow.
Cummings, who was named as a defendant in the lawsuit, also had a strong reaction to Trump’s lawsuit.
“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 sent to Law&Crime. “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 claims that the House Oversight Committee should not be allowed to obtain his financial documents from accounting firm Mazars USA because he believes there is no legislative purpose for the disclosure.
[Image via Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images]
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