In the suit, filed in the federal courthouse in Manhattan in New York City, the president and his family members argue that the Democrat-controlled House committee leaders who issued subpoenas engaged in a broad overreach.
“This case involves congressional subpoenas that have no legitimate or lawful purpose,” the suit alleges. “The subpoenas were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses and the private information of the president and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage. No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one.”
On April 15, the House’s Intelligence and Financial Services Committees issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank, a longtime lender to Trump’s real estate company, as well as to a range of other firms and financial institutions.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the Intelligence Committee, called the lawsuit “meritless” in a joint statement, and said it demonstrated “the depths to which President Trump will go to obstruct Congress’s constitutional oversight authority.”
“As a private businessman, Trump routinely used his well-known litigiousness and the threat of lawsuits to intimidate others, but he will find that Congress will not be deterred from carrying out its constitutional responsibilities,” they said. “This lawsuit is not designed to succeed; it is only designed to put off meaningful accountability as long as possible.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.