Ruling says Congress due Trump records

WASHINGTON — House Democrats who have spent years investigating Donald Trump are entitled to some of the former president’s financial records, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington empowering Congress to have the records is the latest development in yearslong legal and political skirmishes over access to Trump’s closely held finances. But it’s unlikely to be the last say on the matter given expected appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court has already weighed in once.

At issue is a demand from Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which in 2019 and again last February subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, for the records.

In his order, Mehta wrote that though he had previously turned aside Trump’s challenge to the subpoena and permitted the committee’s demand for records to “proceed without qualification,” a Supreme Court opinion from 2020 required a new analysis in favor of more limited access to the records than what lawmakers initially wanted.

That opinion cited separation-of-power concerns in saying that while Congress has significant power to demand the president’s personal information, it is not limitless.

Applying factors that the high court set out, Mehta wrote that the House was entitled to some financial records from 2017 and 2018 — when Trump was president.

Separately, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said in an opinion last month that the Treasury Department must provide the House Ways and Means Committee with Trump’s tax returns.