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Here's How The Trump Org. Lawsuit Is Indirectly Asking Congress To Impeach Donald Trump

If Trump org. is right, the solution is to impeach their boss, the President.

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(Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Donald Trump (the President) has apparently ordered Donald Trump (the businessman) to sue the House Oversight Committee to prevent the release of Donald Trump’s financial records that could show that Donald Trump (the President and businessman) is a fraud. If we still had the capacity to be shocked by the corrupt behavior of this president, this would be shocking. But considering all of the other blurred lines between the Trump organization and the Trump administration, this lawsuit seems almost normal.

It’s not normal. A President of the United States resisting Congressional oversight by ordering his private businesses to fight a subpoena is unprecedented. Donald Trump has been the least transparent and most compromised president in history regarding his financial interests. Fighting yet again to keep those interests and representations secret, in the face of a Congressional subpoena no less, should result in a weeks-long scandal and intense public pressure to drop the lawsuit and comply with the subpoena.

But it’s clear that Trump will do anything to hide his financial dealings from the American public, and it’s clear that no pressure can be brought against him so long as his base and the Republican party remain in his thrall.

However, this lawsuit might still backfire against Trump. This lawsuit (you can read it here on Axios) is meant to block subpoenas from House Oversight of Mazars USA, Trump’s longtime accountant. Trump org’s argument is that the subpoenas exceed Congressional power because they’re being issued without concrete legislation in mind.

The theory that Congress can only issue subpoenas to investigate issues they are directly intending to legislate on is untested. The convention is that Congress has broad subpoena power and reading it narrowly would obviate much of the work of committees like the House Oversight Committee. Moreover, in the instant case, House Oversight has a good argument that it is indeed intending to offer legislation that would prohibit Trump’s particular attempts to hide his business dealings from the American public while serving as President.

But… if Trump org. wins the day and these subpoenas are viewed to exceed Congressional authority, then the easiest and most direct fix to the problem would be to open impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. If the House is limited from investigating fraud committed by the President of the United States in the normal course of business, it cannot be limited from investigating fraud committed by the President as part of the impeachment process.

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One thing that has marked the Trump administration is sheer legal incompetence. A “victory” by Trump’s legal team here could end up as their biggest mistake yet. Many House Democrats have indicated a totally spineless reluctance to impeach Trump solely on the findings in the Mueller Report. Democrats seem more comfortable with additional investigations over formal impeachment.

If a court tells them they cannot continue to investigate the President, absent impeachment proceedings, well the case for impeachment gets a whole lot easier. People want to see these documents. People want to see Trump’s taxes (which are not the subject of this lawsuit, but are being fought by Trump in other ways). If courts decide that the only way Congress can review those documents is under the guise of impeachment, then Trump can have the opportunity of cooperating with the investigation like a normal president or being impeached simply because of his hostility towards cooperation.

In the meantime, this lawsuit is just a delaying tactic. Trump doesn’t want people to know what his accountants know. Trump doesn’t want people to be able to match his financial declarations to Deutsche Bank with the financial declarations in his tax returns. Trump is trying to delay and delay and try to get to 2020 with all of these questions still unanswered. Heck, Trump might even want to get impeached, he’s more comfortable fighting than governing anyway.

Nothing like this has ever happened before in American history. Republicans won’t join the effort to stop this madness. And so the games keep going on.

Trump, Trump Organization sue House Oversight’s Elijah Cummings to block subpoena [Axios]

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Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.

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