Washington - US President Donald Trump
sued on Monday to block a subpoena issued by the Democratic
chairman of the US House Oversight Committee that sought
information about his personal and business finances.
The suit, the first salvo in what promises to be an
escalating legal battle over efforts to investigate Trump by the
Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress, alleged Democrats have
launched "all-out political war" on Trump and subpoenas "are
their weapon of choice."
The committee's subpoena had sought eight years of documents
from Mazars USA, an accounting firm long used by Trump to
prepare financial statements, related to its investigation of
allegations Trump inflated or deflated financial statements for
potentially improper purposes.
Elijah Cummings, the House Oversight Committee chairman,
issued the subpoena to the president's accountant after Trump's
former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress in February
that Trump had misrepresented his net worth.
"Chairman Cummings' subpoena is invalid and unenforceable
because it has no legitimate legislative purpose," Trump's
lawyers said in a filing.
"Its goal is to expose Plaintiffs’ private financial
information for the sake of exposure, 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," they said.
The filing is the first effort by Trump's legal team to
quash multiple investigations by Democratic-led committees in
Congress of Trump and his finances. His lawyers made it clear
they would resist those efforts.
"Democrats are using their new control of congressional
committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump’s
personal finances, businesses, and even his family," Trump's
lawyers said.
"Instead of working with the President to pass bipartisan
legislation that would actually benefit Americans, Democrats are
singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to
damage the President politically," they said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for
comment, and the U.S. House Oversight Committee did not
immediately have a response.
The filing said Democrats have issued more than 100
subpoenas and requests "to anyone with even the most tangential
connection to the President."