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PostPosted: 05/14/19 12:35 pm • # 1 
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WOOO HOOO! ~ :st ~ being "very reluctant" is not the same as a flat-out "NO", but it puts them on notice that it is "likely" ~ Sooz

Trump lawyers strike out in subpoena hearing — and judge warns he won’t let them ‘drag this out’
Brad Reed / 14 May 2019 at 13:35 ET

Attorneys representing President Donald Trump on Tuesday faced a tough grilling by a federal judge who expressed skepticism of their claims that Congress must have a legitimate “legislative purpose” in order to seek documents related to the president’s finances.

Politico reports that Amit Mehta, a district court judge in Washington D.C., indicated during a hearing that he would be very reluctant to declare a congressional subpoena of Trump’s finances unconstitutional based on Congress’ role in overseeing the executive branch as outlined in the Constitution.

Mehta was particularly skeptical of the Trump attorneys’ claims that Congress needed to show a legitimate legislative reason before it could subpoena documents related to the president’s finances.

“Does Congress have to do that — do they have to identify a bill in advance?” he asked at one point. “The Supreme Court has said the opposite.”

In particular, Mehta said that congressional investigations of former presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were not attached to any specific legislative purpose.

Mehta also shot down Trump lawyers’ objections to his decision to consolidate the legal procedural steps in an effort to speed up the case.

“We’re not going to drag this out,” he said, according to Law & Crimes.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/trump-lawyers-strike-out-in-subpoena-hearing-and-judge-warns-he-wont-let-them-drag-this-out/


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PostPosted: 05/14/19 3:45 pm • # 2 
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Here's more detail ~ Sooz

Judge Skeptical Of Trump Effort To Block Subpoena Of Accounting Firm
By Tierney Sneed / May 14, 2019 12:22 pm

A federal judge had tough questions for the lawyers leading the effort by President Trump and his businesses to block a House subpoena of Trump’s accounting firm for his financial records.

At a hearing on Tuesday in D.C., U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta grilled Trump’s lawyer William Consovoy about his arguments that the subpoena exceeded Congress’ constitutional authorities.

At one point, Mehta asked Consovoy if it was his view that Congress’ investigations into Whitewater and Watergate were beyond the scope of their authority.

Consovoy stammered a bit, before telling the judge he would need to look more closely at the bases of those investigations.

Tuesday’s proceeding was the first public hearing in a matter related to the multi-front showdown between President Trump and House Democrats over Congress’ oversight abilities. But it’s likely to be the first of many.

In this case, private attorneys working on behalf of Trump and his business sued to stop their accounting firm from complying with a House subpoena for business records. The House Democrats have intervened to defend their subpoena. The accounting firm, Mazars has not taken a position in the matter.

Judge Mehta indicated at Tuesday’s hearing that he would decide matter quickly based on what had already been argued. It is almost guaranteed, however, that whatever his decision is, it will be appealed to a higher court.

Trump has claimed in legal filings that the subpoena should be blocked because it serves “no legitimate legislative purpose.” House Democrats argued that Trump is misconstruing their investigative authorities. Outside legal scholars have mostly sided with Democrats in their analysis of the case so far.

Trump and his family brought a similar lawsuit in New York against their banks Deutsche Bank and Capital One.

On Tuesday, Consovoy argued that Congress was inappropriately seeking to take on the role of law enforcement in its investigation to Trump.

“They have made clear this is not about legislation,” he said.

Mehta asked Consovoy if he was asking the judge to look beyond what facially acceptable reasons for Congress’ investigations are and to get to their motives, which the judge was “expressly prohibited” from getting to. Consovoy claimed he was not asking the court to look for “secret motives.”

“We think that when you look at those letters in the full context,” Consovoy said, referring to the letters that the committee sent regarding the document requests, “this is law enforcement.”

The judge, however, seemed wary of the argument that Congress could only investigate matters it could specifically tie to legislation. He asked Consovoy whether Congress “has a function of informing itself and informing the public” of wrongdoing, such as corruption.

Judge Mehta also grilled Consovoy on the relevant case law and asked the lawyer specifically whether there was a case more recent than one decided in 1880 that found a congressional subpoena overstepped its authority.

After some quibbling, Consovoy went on to concede that the 1880 case, Kilbourn v. Thompson, was the most recent one dealing with that particular issue but he stressed that the case was “good law” and relevant to the Trump lawsuit.

When it was the House’s turn in front of the judge, Mehta asked their lawyer Doug Letter about the lack of an official statement or resolution defining their accusations.

“It really does, open the door, it seems to me to the accusations… valid or not,” that this was about an effort to get into the President’s private affairs for political reasons, the judge said.

The judge also asked Letter if there were any limits, under his theory of Congress’ investigative theory, to what the committee can investigate about the president’s private life.

Letter said he could think of some hypotheticals — like a subpoena for a president’s diary from when he was seven years old — that would stretch his legal arguments, but “fortunately, for the House, they are nowhere even close to that.”

Letter argued that it was within Congress’ interest to investigate whether the President broke any laws, and stressed that didn’t mean Congress was trying to prosecute the President.

He put forth the hypothetical that a president, before taking office, may have committed bank fraud by lying on a loan application, and that he might now be “beholden” to a bank or foreign government that knows he broke the law.

Mehta last week indicated that he planned to consolidate some of the procedural steps in the case — putting it on a fast track for resolution. Trump’s lawyers objected to the move on Monday, in a filing that asked that the judge either postpone Tuesday’s hearing or reverse his decision to consolidate the matters that he planned to hear on Tuesday. House Democrats opposed Trump’s request.

Mehta declined to cancel Tuesday’s hearing but said on Monday he’d hear Trump’s objections to the consolidation move.

At the beginning of the hearing he made clear that he was not going to rule from the bench on Tuesday. However, he also quizzed Consovoy about what more Trump’s legal team needed to do to complete the record so that the judge could make a ruling on the merits of the case. The judge ultimately denied Consovoy’s request for additional briefing in the case, and instead said he would keep the record open until May 18 for any additional information that the parties wanted to submit.

“We’re not going to drag this out,” the judge said.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/hearing-trump-mazars-oversight-subpoena


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PostPosted: 05/15/19 11:04 am • # 3 
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I know that any law is open to "interpretation" ... but this takes ridiculousness to a whole new/lower level ~ :ey ~ Sooz

Trump lawyers take fight against oversight to ‘astonishing’ lengths
05/15/19 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen

[Video, The Rachel Maddow Show, 5/14/19, 9:25 PM ET, "Trump lawyers deny Congress's authority on presidential crimes", accessible via the end link.]

Donald Trump and his lawyers haven’t exactly been transparent when it comes to the president’s personal finances, so the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars, to acquire materials on the president’s financial history. The Republican’s lawyers sued in the hopes of blocking the subpoena.

It set the stage for an interesting federal court hearing, in which a judge “expressed astonishment Tuesday at arguments raised by President Trump’s lawyers.”

Some of the underlying legal issues are complex, but as Rachel explained on the show last night, the point lead Trump attorney William S. Consovoy hoped to make was relatively straightforward: practically all congressional oversight of presidential wrongdoing is illegal.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta took some time to test the scope of the argument. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank highlighted one of the key exchanges from the courtroom:

Quote:
Mehta, an Obama appointee, probed for the limits of this breathtaking theory but found none: Trump’s finances are not subject to investigation?

“Correct,” Consovoy informed the judge.

Congress can’t verify the accuracy of the president’s financial statements?

“Correct.”

If “a president was involved in some corrupt enterprise, you mean to tell me because he is the president of the United States, Congress would not have power to investigate?”

No, Consovoy said, because that’s “not pursuant to its legislative agenda.”

Of course, by this reasoning, Congress’ Watergate investigation was itself illegal. When the judge yesterday asked specifically whether Nixon’s corrupt enterprise should’ve been shielded from congressional scrutiny, Trump’s lawyer hedged, saying he’d “have to look” at some of specific questions surrounding the controversy.

Or put another way, according to the president’s attorneys, the Watergate hearings may have been unconstitutional, but he’d need to do some additional research before giving a definitive answer.

In case this isn’t obvious, the argument from Team Trump is quite nutty. The Republican’s lawyers went to court and argued, in all seriousness, that Congress has no legitimate authority to scrutinize presidential corruption – period, full stop.

This argument is unlikely to prevail, and if Trump is counting on a legal victory, he should probably start lowering his expectations.

But the fact that his lawyers – hired specifically to keep his financial information hidden – would even push this theory in a courtroom is extraordinary. When Trump’s war on oversight reaches a level in which his lawyers suggest the Watergate hearings were themselves legally dubious, there’s a problem.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-lawyers-take-fight-against-oversight-astonishing-lengths


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PostPosted: 05/20/19 4:57 pm • # 4 
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Judge Mehta hung tough ~ :st ~ the "pic" live link below in the quote is to the Memorandum Opinion ~ more DiC raging tweets in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... ~ Sooz

[size=125]Federal judge sides with House Oversight Democrats on subpoena for Trump financial records[/ize]
Bob Brigham / 20 May 2019 at 16:56 ET

U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta on Monday ruled that President Donald Trump must abide by a Congressional subpoena for the president’s financial records.

The judge said Trump’s attorneys “have not raised a ‘serious legal question[] going to the merits.'”

Trump has seven days to comply with the subpoena.

Quote:
Breaking: DC judge Amit Mehta upholds House subpoena for Trump financial records https://t.co/zSe5HnBSQt pic.twitter.com/B8xC5xnREg

— Mike Scarcella (@MikeScarcella) May 20, 2019

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/federal-judge-sides-with-house-oversight-democrats-on-subpoena-for-trump-financial-records/


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 8:26 am • # 5 
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TERRIFIC commentary and perspective, from start to finish ~ :st :st :st ~ "live links" in original ~ Sooz

Trying to keep Trump’s finances secret, his lawyers fail miserably
05/21/19 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen

[Video, The Rachel Maddow Show, 5/20/19, 9:04 PM ET, "Trump tactics to conceal his finances begin to fall apart", accessible via the end link.]

The more Donald Trump and his administration have fought to keep the president’s finances hidden, the more congressional investigators have looked for ways to circumvent the barriers. A few weeks ago, this included a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars, to acquire materials on the president’s financial history.

The Republican’s lawyers sued in the hopes of blocking the subpoena and told a federal judge that Congress lacks the legal authority to scrutinize presidential misdeeds. To the surprise of no one, this effort failed spectacularly.

Quote:
A federal judge in Washington D.C. on Monday ruled in favor of the House Oversight Committee’s bid to obtain President Donald Trump’s financial records from his accounting firm.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who also denied Trump’s request to stay his decision pending an appeal, said Congress was acting within its broad authority to investigate, rejecting arguments from Trump’s attorneys who said the panel’s probe, and subsequent document demands, served no legislative purpose.

“It is simply not fathomable that a Constitution that grants Congress the power to remove a President for reasons including criminal behavior would deny Congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct – past or present – even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry,” Mehta wrote.

The judge added, “Congress plainly views itself as having sweeping authority to investigate illegal conduct of a President, before and after taking office. This court is not prepared to roll back the tide of history.”

Trump’s lawyers, hired specifically to keep his financial history hidden from public view, asked the judge to issue a stay, leaving the status quo in place while the matter is appealed. Mehta said no. Mazars now has seven days to comply with the ruling.

For his part, the president has already said his legal team will file an appeal anyway, taking the matter to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. (Its chief judge, incidentally, is Merrick Garland.) But that’s not all Trump said in the wake of yesterday afternoon’s ruling.

On the White House South Lawn yesterday, a reporter asked the president for his reaction, and it led to a rather amazing response:

Quote:
“Well, we disagree with that ruling. It’s crazy – because you look at it; this never happened to any other president. They’re trying to get a redo. They’re trying to get what we used to call in school: a deal – a ‘do-over.’ And if you look, you know, we had no collusion, we had no obstruction. We had no nothing.

“The Democrats were very upset with the Mueller report, as perhaps they should be. But, I mean, the country is very happy about it because there was never anything like that. And they’re trying to get a redo, or a do-over, and you can’t do that.

“As far as the financials are concerned, we think it’s the wrong – it’s totally the wrong decision by, obviously, an Obama-appointed judge. He was a recent Obama-appointed judge.”

Let’s take a minute to unpack this one:

1. The only “crazy” legal argument here is the one floated by Trump’s lawyers.

2. The underlying legal questions have been tested by other presidents. In fact, yesterday’s ruling emphasizes this point literally in the first sentence of the first page. (Trump’s not much of a reader.)

3. There are a variety of questions about the president’s controversial finances, but Trump’s insistence that these lines of inquiry have something to do with the Mueller investigation is quite odd. It’s as if Trump doesn’t really understand the most basic elements of the congressional investigation.

4. Presidents have to honor court rulings, even if they hate the president who nominated the judge who issued the decision.

Other than that, Trump’s little tantrum was fine.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trying-keep-trumps-finances-secret-his-lawyers-fail-miserably


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 8:40 am • # 6 
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I remain some convinced that Deutsche Bank is the key since I strongly suspect that the Russians provided loan guarantees for the Trumps. I can't think of any other reasons why that one bank (heavily involved with the Russian oligarchs) was the only one to extend the credit.


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 8:59 am • # 7 
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as i stated before, i can't think of a single court case that the administration has prevailed on.

the only thing they seem to be good at is spin.


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 9:25 am • # 8 
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oskar576 wrote:
I remain some convinced that Deutsche Bank is the key since I strongly suspect that the Russians provided loan guarantees for the Trumps. I can't think of any other reasons why that one bank (heavily involved with the Russian oligarchs) was the only one to extend the credit.

Speaking of Deutsche Bank, read on and watch ~ I encourage y'all to read the NYT expose, live-linked below ~ :ey ~ Sooz

Why is Trump desperately trying to hide his history with Deutsche Bank?
Tana Ganeva / 21 May 2019 at 10:54 ET

On Monday, the New York Times reported that staffers at Deutsche Bank flagged multiple incidents of suspicious activity involving the accounts of President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner. But higher-ups ignored their warnings and continued doing business with Trump and Kushner.

In a CNN segment, journalist and political commentator John Avlon laid out the long history between President Trump and Deutsche Bank, which lent him billions of dollars despite his propensity for losing money.

“For all of you out there who were denied a mortgage despite a good credit score and liquidity, just because the big banks were running scared after the financial crisis of 2008? Do we have a story for you,” Avlon says. “Because one very big bank has stuck by one very controversial client for decades, through thick and thin — mostly thin, extending him 2.5 billion in loans, when other banks wouldn’t give him the time of day.”

Avlon points out that as Trump racked up debt in the 1990s, U.S. based financial institutions largely avoided him. But seeking a foothold in the U.S., Deutsche Bank lent him massive amounts of cash despite all of the red flags. That backfired on them after the financial crisis when Trump tried to wiggle out of contracts with the bank.

Of course, Trump has pledged to block Deutsche Bank executives from testifying before Congress.

“Why is Trump trying so hard to keep all this hidden?” Avlon wonders. He points to the president’s reaction to the original New York Times story that revealed most banks didn’t want to do business with him. Trump railed against the Times report in a tweet storm, denying that he’d had trouble finding other financial institutions to invest in him.

“If you believe that, I have a low-interest loan to sell you,” Avlon concludes.

Watch: [video accessible via the end link]

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/why-is-trump-desperately-trying-to-hide-his-history-with-deutsche-bank/


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 9:31 am • # 9 
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they are a bunch of scumbags.


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 10:30 am • # 10 
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Read an article the other day that said even Deutsche Bank has become leery of him because of his "I'm God. The law doesn't apply to me" attitude since becoming President. They are afraid that if he defaults on his loans (who couldn't see that coming) they will have no avenue to recover what they're owed from his collateral. (Incidentally, even DB wouldn't give him loans on personal guarantee. All of them, like the other loans he's got from other banks, are fully secured with hard collateral.)


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 10:37 am • # 11 
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jimwilliam wrote:
Read an article the other day that said even Deutsche Bank has become leery of him because of his "I'm God. The law doesn't apply to me" attitude since becoming President. They are afraid that if he defaults on his loans (who couldn't see that coming) they will have no avenue to recover what they're owed from his collateral. (Incidentally, even DB wouldn't give him loans on personal guarantee. All of them, like the other loans he's got from other banks, are fully secured with hard collateral.)


Overvalued collateral for loans purposes but undervalued for tax purposes? That collateral?


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 10:51 am • # 12 
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Overvalued collateral for loans purposes but undervalued for tax purposes? That collateral?

Not that I understand. They demand real collateral that they have valued.


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 10:57 am • # 13 
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jimwilliam wrote:
Overvalued collateral for loans purposes but undervalued for tax purposes? That collateral?

Not that I understand. They demand real collateral that they have valued.


Depends. If there were loan guarantees from third parties...


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PostPosted: 05/21/19 11:27 am • # 14 
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PostPosted: 05/22/19 2:26 pm • # 15 
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Racking up losses at this pace is almost [ALMOST!] impossible to keep up with ~ the DiC is an effective unregistered annuity for the attorneys involved ~ :ey ~ Sooz

Report: Judge Rejects Trump Push To Halt House Subpoenas To Banks
By Josh Kovensky / May 22, 2019 3:59 pm

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected an attempt from President Trump’s personal attorneys to halt a House subpoena to Deutsche Bank and Capital One, according to news reports.

Through personal attorney William Consovoy, Trump demanded that Ramos issue a preliminary injunction that would halt the subpoenas to the Trump lenders.

Trump sued Deutsche Bank and Capital One to prevent them from carrying out subpoenas sent by the House Intelligence and Financial Services committees, using private attorneys he hired.

Deutsche and Capital One have taken no position until the case is resolved; House Democrats are defending the subpoenas in court.

In a filing before the hearing, a personal attorney for Trump, Consovoy, accused House Democrats of trying to “rifle through” Trump’s personal financial info and that of his close family, a number of whom are either White House officials or Trump Org executives.

The subpoena to Deutsche Bank targets “records and/or information related to banking activities, including information regarding accounts, financings, and related financial information,” according to the lawsuit. The Capital One subpoena asks for similar documents from Trump, his businesses, and his family members, as part of an investigation into fraud allegations.

The case comes as a piece of a larger stonewalling effort that Trump has undertaken against myriad Congressional investigations. In a similar but separate case where Trump sued his longtime accountant, a D.C. federal judge on Monday smacked down the President’s attempt to halt the subpoena.

These hearings and decisions are likely to be followed by similar dramas until the next election.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/judge-rejects-trump-deutsche-bank-capitol-one


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PostPosted: 05/22/19 4:23 pm • # 16 
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My above post was apparently just an announcement of today's decision ~ this is the report on what happened in the courtroom ~ :ey ~ Sooz

Judge Told Trump Attorneys Their Case To Block Subpoenas Isn’t ‘Serious’
By Josh Kovensky / May 22, 2019 5:10 pm

The Manhattan federal judge who immediately blocked an attempt from President Trump to halt a Congressional subpoena for his financial records told private attorneys hired by the President that their case was not “serious.”

During the hour-long read of his opinion on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos drew a distinction between the “serious political ramifications” of the investigation into a president’s finances, and what constitutes a “serious” question to be considered by a judge.

“The court concludes that the plaintiffs have not raised any serious questions,” Ramos said.

He added that, “even if the questions were sufficiently serious, injunctive relief would be unwarranted.”

Trump’s arguments in the matter have come under attack as an attempt to delay Congressional investigations until past the 2020 elections.

Ramos declined to issue a preliminary injunction halting the enforcement of subpoenas sent by the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees to longtime Trump lenders Deutsche Bank and Capital One in a Wednesday court hearing.

The judge drew special attention to the question of timing during his ruling, saying that “any delay in the proceedings may result in irreparable harm to the Committees.”

He added that the law in the matter was “well-settled.”

“Courts have long recognized a clear public interest in maximizing Congress’s power to investigate,” Ramos intoned.

Trump had argued that because House Democrats’ motives for accessing the information was “political,” the judge should strike down the subpoenas as unconstitutional.

“Propriety of legislative motives is not a question left to the courts,” Ramos said. He added that, rather, the question was “left to voters, not judges.”

The bench ruling came two days after D.C. federal judge Amit Mehta issued a lengthy and broad opinion denying a similar request from Trump to shut down a Congressional subpoena to his accountant Mazars. In that opinion, Mehta compared Trump’s behavior to that of President Buchanan.

Ramos called Mehta’s opinion “thorough,” and quoted it in his own ruling.

The judge’s decision followed lengthy and contentious oral arguments, during which the judge took pain to grill both sides.

The private attorney representing Trump at the hearing — Patrick Strawbridge of Consovoy McCarthy Park — stammered as he attempted to respond to an initial volley of questions from Ramos.

Trump had argued that the subpoenas lacked a “legitimate legislative purpose,” meaning that Congress had issued “illegal” requests while repeatedly referring to the President’s “private financial affairs.”

Ramos asked Strawbridge, “In fact, don’t they provide a number of valid legislative reasons?”

The Trump attorney replied, “We do not believe that they do,” before accusing the House of using an investigation into “unsafe lending practices” as a cover for “law enforcement activity.”

Ramos then said that Congress may have been providing an “encouragement to follow the law” in its statements and asked Strawbridge, “Why is that an inappropriate thing for Congress to be encouraging?”

The Trump attorney then repeated his accusation that the House was trying to act as a law enforcer, before saying that it was a problem because it relates to Trump’s “private affairs” and was “not about his activities in office.”

Ramos went on to say that Trump’s lawyers also complained about the subpoenas’ breadth, asking Strawbridge: “Doesn’t the way the Trump organization is structured require that it reach the family members, because of the closely held nature of the organization?”

Again, Strawbridge accused the House of going after the “private affairs of officials.”

But in a surprise, the real fireworks in the hearing came from Ramos’s questioning of Douglas Letter, the House’s general counsel.

Letter, who revealed during arguments that House committees had sent about ten subpoenas in total as part of the wave of requests that also went to Deutsche and Capital One, appeared slightly caught off guard by grilling from Ramos.

The judge asked Letter “what are you going to do” with information from Deutsche Bank and Capital One.

“We don’t just willy-nilly disclose things,” Letter replied, before saying disclosure of the financial information would be up to a vote.

Ramos went on to ask Letter why it wouldn’t be “irreparable harm” for the information to be disclosed. Trump’s attorneys had argued that the subpoena should be blocked because if Congress releases Trump’s financial information, that would constitute irreparable harm.

“Are you conceding that aspect of the analysis?” Ramos asked, apparently surprised.

Letter assented, before pivoting to Congress’s “limited time” in probing the matter.

But during the readout of his ruling, Ramos noted that “at oral arguments,” the House conceded the point.

“They concede Trump and his family members would suffer irreparable harm,” Ramos said.

Ramos also said that he “appreciates the urgency” of the matter.

Letter referenced previous Congressional oversight cases, including one involving testimony from Karl Rove that took years to be resolved.

“We desperately do not want that to happen,” Letter said.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/judge-trump-congress-subpoena


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PostPosted: 05/27/19 11:03 am • # 17 
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Verrrrry interesting/informative read ~ :st ~ Sooz

Democrats claim victory as Trump gets battered in court
By Jacqueline Thomsen - 05/27/19 07:00 AM EDT

President Trump took a beating in federal court last week, losing a pair of lawsuits aimed at hindering House Democrats' investigations into him and his administration.

The decisions indicated that Trump will ultimately lose the fights: Both judges in the subpoena cases issued their rulings swiftly and decisively, underscoring the weakness of Trump's legal arguments.

The lawsuits were likely intended as Trump's attempt to delay Congress from being able to obtain the documents, taking advantage of the slow pace of the court system while keeping an eye on getting the cases up to the Supreme Court.

But the court victories are providing Democrats with momentum as they accelerate their Trump investigations — and providing fodder for party leaders to argue impeachment proceedings aren’t necessary as they make legal headways.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), whose subpoena for Trump’s financial records from the accounting firm Mazars was upheld in D.C. court, said that the judge had found Democrats’ arguments “a slam dunk.”

“I think the courts will look at this and say, ‘wait a minute ... there is a role for the Congress, and their role is clear,’” Cummings told reporters this week.

D.C. Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee, this week found that lawmakers can move forward with their subpoena for financial records from Trump's accounting firm Mazars.

Just days later, New York Judge Edgardo Ramos, another Obama appointee, rejected Trump's request to block similar congressional subpoenas for documents from Deutsche Bank and Capital One, two financial institutions that have had dealings with Trump.

The president isn’t calling it quits just yet: His attorneys have already filed appeals for both rulings.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to expedite the Mazars subpoena case, but it will still be months before the judges come to a ruling: They are set to hear oral arguments in the case in mid-July.

Meanwhile, a schedule has yet to be set in the second case on the Deutsche Bank and Capital One subpoenas.

Still, Cummings said he was encouraged that Trump’s lawyers were moving the case along.

“One of the things that we always worried about was whether it would take so long to get this thing through the court process that it just wouldn't make any sense,” the Democratic chairman said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who jointly issued the Deutsche Bank and Capital One subpoenas with House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), welcomed the rulings, saying that “speed is of the essence” in getting the documents.

He pointed to a New York Times report that Deutsche Bank staff had internally flagged suspicious activity from entities controlled by Trump and his son-in-law, White House aide Jared Kushner, as further reason to continue their investigation.

“Recent reports that suspicious activity involving accounts linked to the president or his son-in-law went unreported to the Treasury Department only illustrate why it's so important for us to do our work without delay or interference by the president or family members,” Schiff told reporters. “I’m very pleased with the court decision, upholding the rule of law and Congress's ability to do its constitutional duty.”

Trump dismissed the Times over the report, calling it part of the "Fake News Media" that "keep writing phony stories."

The pair of victories come as House Democrats across several committees have launched a myriad of investigations involving not only Trump himself, but also the president’s family, businesses and administration.

Mitchel Sollenberger, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, said that the court decisions so far could solidify Congress’s right to investigate, at a time when the Trump administration is trying to fend off the investigations as being political and without legislative purpose.

“Those investigations, they're going to be strengthened because you've got two federal courts right now who are saying that Congress, their powers aren't weakened because there's no explicit legislative purpose,” Sollenberger said.

The court wins are also providing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other top Democrats with some cover as they look to fend off calls by progressive parts of the party to initiate impeachment proceedings as a way to advance the investigations.

Calls for impeachment rose after special counsel Robert Mueller laid out instances of potential obstruction of justice by the Trump administration, while declining to determine whether there was enough evidence to pursue charges.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday that he had urged Pelosi earlier this week to consider opening an impeachment inquiry into Trump in order to boost lawmakers’s chances of winning in court.

But he admitted this week’s legal victories have made that argument “much weaker.”

Morgan Chalfant and Olivia Beavers contributed.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/445498-democrats-claim-victory-as-trump-gets-battered-in-court


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PostPosted: 05/27/19 4:05 pm • # 18 
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Joined: 01/16/09
Posts: 14234
again....he is yet to win a case. that tells ME that it is just a matter of time......


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