President Donald Trump‘s attorneys filed a memorandum of law on Friday in an effort to block Deutsche Bank and Capital One from complying with subpoenas from the House of Representatives ahead of a May 6 deadline. Attorneys Marc Mukasey, William Consovoy and Patrick Strawbridge moved for a preliminary injunction to block the “outrageously broad” subpoenas.
“The House of Representatives desperately wants President Donald J. Trump’s private financial records. But instead of trying to obtain them from the President, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Financial Services Committee issued subpoenas to two banks that have done business with the President: Deutsche Bank and Capital One,” they began. “According to the Banks, the Committees’ sweeping subpoenas seek a mountain of documents—covering at least the last ten years—not only about President Trump, but also his children, their children and spouses, a number of his businesses, and even any affiliates, employees, or agents of those businesses.”
They noted that the subpoenas demand, “among other things, records of every single checking-account withdrawal, credit-card swipe, or debit-card purchase—no matter how trivial or small—made by each and every member of the Trump family.” They argued that this was an “outrageously broad” demand. They also argued that the plaintiffs (Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, the Trump Organization, inc., the Trump Organization, LLC etc.) “face ‘irreparable harm’ and have a ‘likelihood of success on the merits.’”
Trump attorneys said that the broadness of the subpoenas proves that the Democrats are not acting with a “legitimate legislative purpose” in mind.
“At best, the Committees seek these documents so they can conduct law-enforcement activities that the Supreme Court has held are reserved to the other branches,” they said. “More likely, though, the Committees want to collect and ‘expose’ the financial documents of the President—and his children and grandchildren—’for the sake of exposure.’”
The attorneys then cited a case they called “procedurally identical.” That case said that “irreparable harm is the ‘decisive element’ favoring interim relief against a congressional subpoena to a third-party bank.”
“For all these reasons, Plaintiffs respectfully ask this Court to enter a preliminary injunction prohibiting Defendants from enforcing or complying with the subpoenas until the Court can issue a final judgment,” Trump attorneys concluded.
While Trump has been fighting efforts by Congress to obtain various financial records, Deutsche Bank still agreed to comply with state authorities in New York. Deutsche Bank, known for lending the Trump Organization more than $300 million according to public filings, has already handed over some records to the New York Attorney General’s office.
The ongoing feud between NY AG Letitia James and Trump is well-documented.
Trump Memorandum of Law in Deutsche Bank Suit by Law&Crime on Scribd
Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
[Image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
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