President Trump is fighting House committee subpoenas ordering Deutsche Bank and Capital One to turn over his bank records. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
NEW YORK — A Manhattan federal judge who rejected a request by President Trump last week to block congressional subpoenas for his banking records has agreed to put the case on hold while Trump appeals the ruling.
Trump and attorneys for the House committees that ordered Deutsche Bank, the president’s biggest creditor, and Capital One to turn over years of the president’s financial information jointly asked Southern District Court Judge Edgardo Ramos to delay enforcement of the subpoenas while an appeal is expedited through the courts. Ramos agreed to the request on Monday.
[Judge rejects Trump’s request to halt congressional subpoenas for his banking records]
Trump and congressional Democrats are locked in an escalating fight over the president’s financial records. The Treasury Department has also declined to turn over the president’s tax returns to a congressional committee despite a confidential Internal Revenue Service legal memo that found it should.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Washington rejected Trump’s effort to block the House Oversight Committee’s demands for records from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA. The committee and Trump’s attorneys agreed to expedite the appeal of that decision last week.
In the case involving Deutsche Bank and Capital One, Trump’s attorneys said the information being requested by the House Intelligence and Financial Services committees is too broad and would violate the president’s privacy.
Ramos rejected Trump’s motion for a preliminary injunction and ruled that the president and his family “are unlikely to succeed on merits of their claims.”
That brought House Democrats one step closer to getting access to a trove of financial information about Trump and his business.
Deutsche Bank has been a major lender to both the Trump Organization and Kushner Cos., which previously was run by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who now is a presidential adviser.
Congressional Democrats have long said they want to examine the bank’s loans to the Trump and Kushner businesses, particularly to see if there is any connection to money-laundering in Russia.