House Defends Subpoenas for Trump’s Deutsche Bank Records

(Bloomberg) -- Two committees of the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives defended their subpoenas to Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp. for President Donald Trump’s personal financial records.

The House Financial Services Committee and Intelligence Committee urged the federal appeals court in New York to reject Trump’s attempt to block the subpoenas, arguing that Congress has broad authority to investigate and that the demands for Trump’s records are proper.

The committees “are investigating serious and urgent matters concerning the safety of certain banking practices, money laundering in the financial sector, foreign influence in the U.S. political process, and the counterintelligence threats posed by foreign financial leverage,” they argued to the court.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos in May refused to block the subpoenas, saying since the president, his family and his business were unlikely to convince a judge that the congressional subpoenas are improper, he wouldn’t intervene to stop them. The banks took no position and are sitting on the sidelines while Trump and the House fight it out.

The federal appeals court in Washington is set to hear oral arguments Friday over a House subpoena issued to Trump’s accountants, Mazars USA LLP. The New York court is scheduled to review the Deutsche Bank and Capital One subpoenas on Aug. 23

The case is Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG, 19-1540, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Joe Schneider

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