(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump's personal lawyers attacked House Democrats' demand for records from his outside accounting firm as an unauthorized attempt to pry into his business dealings as they prepare for a showdown Friday in an appeals court.
They're trying to convince a three-judge panel that a Washington judge erred in allowing the House Oversight and Reform Committee to demand that Trump's accountant, Mazars USA LLP, turn over records dating back to 2011, including those pertaining to the Trump Organization, his charitable foundation and the operating company for his luxury hotel just blocks from the White House.
While the lawmakers assert their oversight responsibilities give them the right to see that information, Trump's attorneys disagree. They argue the Mazars subpoena has no valid legislative purpose and is, in reality, an improper effort by the Democrats to engage in law enforcement.
“If this subpoena is valid, then Congress is free to investigate every detail of a president's personal life, with endless subpoenas to his accountants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, family, friends, and anyone else with information that a committee finds interesting,” the president's attorneys said in their appeals court filing late Tuesday.
Hearing the case on July 12 will be a three-judge panel comprised of two Democratic presidential appointees, David Tatel and Patricia Millett, as well as one judge appointed by the president himself, Neomi Rao.
Mazars has taken no position in the dispute.
A New York-based federal appeals court will hear arguments next month as the president's attorneys seek reversal of a separate court ruling giving a different House panel access to Trump records held by Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp.
The cases are Trump v. Mazars USA LLP, 19-5142, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit (Washington) and Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG, 19-1540, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Joe Schneider
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