Deutsche Bank, for decades President Donald Trump’s primary lender, has copies of tax returns sought under a congressional subpoena for the President and his family’s financial information, the bank told a federal appeals court on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Redactions in the letter Deutsche Bank filed on Tuesday conceal whether it has the President’s returns or those of others named in the subpoena. The House Intelligence and Financial Services committees in April subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for documents and financial records, including tax returns, related to Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and various business entities they own spanning the last decade.
The same month, Trump and his family sued Deutsche Bank and Capital One, another bank subpoenaed by the House committees for the same information, in an attempt to block the banks from complying with the subpoenas, the Journal adds.
In May, after a hearing in New York, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos ruled that Trump couldn’t temporarily block the subpoenas while the case is being decided. Judge Ramos, who was appointed by former President Barrack Obama, said the subpoenas were a legitimate use of congressional authority.
Trump’s lawyers appealed the district court ruling, and the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hasn’t yet ruled on the lawsuit. The House Intelligence Committee declined to comment on ongoing litigation, and the House Financial Services Committee didn’t respond to a request for comment. Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for the President, called the subpoena unconstitutional and said, “We will continue in court.” The Trump Organization didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The bank’s disclosure that it has tax returns responsive to the congressional subpoenas raises the stakes for the already heated court battle. Since Democrats took over control of the House in January, they have been trying to obtain the President’s tax returns. Trump in 2016 broke with four decades of precedent for presidential candidates and declined to release his tax returns.
In July, the House Ways and Means Committee sued the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service for the President’s tax returns. In a separate dispute, the President sued that committee and New York state officials in an attempt to block his state tax returns from being turned over to the panel.
Lawyers for Trump have argued the subpoenas target banks that his family and businesses used for private affairs long before his election. They said the subpoenas, which they view as overly broad, amount to a law-enforcement investigation that belongs in the executive branch.
“This is not a case that simply pushes the limits of Congress’s ability to compel the production of sensitive, private financial records; it is an attempt to override those limits and insulate Congress’s subpoena power from any meaningful review,” lawyers representing Trump and his businesses wrote in court papers filed with the appeals court.
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