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  • 2018-07-02 (xsd:date)
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  • Could Maxine Waters Subpoena Trump’s Bank Records If Democrats Take the House? (en)
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  • Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling is the current chair of the House Financial Services Committee, a legislative body that has investigative powers over an extremely broad range of matters: Hensarling has declined to subpoena records related to the Trump administration and once dubbed the House Financial Services Committee impeachment central over efforts by its highest ranking Democrat, Maxine Waters, to criticize the Trump administration when its members have testified before the committee: The power to subpoena rests solely with the chair of a congressional committee. If the Democrats took control of the House in the November 2018 mid-term elections, it is likely that Waters, the most senior Democrat on the committee, would become its chair. Although it is not mandated that Waters be given chairmanship of the committee, it would be a break with long-established precedent if she were not. Democrats have signaled that she has their support, even as she has become a more polarizing figure nationally: As chair, Waters would be permitted to issue a subpoena on any matter relevant to the committee. The Supreme Court has affirmed a congressional committee’s ability to issue subpoenas so long as they are part of authorized investigations related to the committee's subject area and are undertaken for a valid legislative purpose. The question of Waters' subpoenaing President Trump’s bank records partly depends on how those records are defined. Regardless of definition, the committee has the general power to subpoena a private business's records (such as those of the Trump organization or the Trump campaign), financial institutions (such as Deutsche Bank, which holds a great deal of Donald Trump’s debt) and individuals. In addition, the committee may subpoena the IRS for anyone's tax records, and the IRS is obligated (under 26 CFR 301.7216-2) to produce them. With respect to the committee's requesting files from a sitting President, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Nixon that the President cannot shield himself from producing evidence in a criminal prosecution based on the doctrine of executive privilege, although it is valid in other situations. Executive privilege would certainly not apply to records antedating Trump’s time in office if a prosecution warranted the collection of those records, but it could conceivably be asserted for some records originating during his term of office. Based on past efforts, it seems that a Democrat-led committee would focus on compelling Deutsche Bank to turn over their records on President Trump. On 23 May 2017, Waters and four other committee members wrote to Deutsche Bank requesting that information, but Deutsche Bank responded a few weeks later that they could not comply with the order because of U.S. privacy laws: A Waters-chaired committee (the most likely outcome if House control shifts parties) would have the power to subpoena those bank records, and if the past acts of the committee's members serve as a reliable guide, Waters would likely use her power for that purpose. (en)
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