There was a hearing today in Trump's lawsuit to block a subpoena

A federal judge in Washington expressed astonishment Tuesday at arguments raised by President Trump’s lawyers seeking to block his accounting firm from turning over years of financial records to the Democratic-controlled House Oversight and Reform Committee and seemed to signal a swift ruling in favor of lawmakers.

U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta fired pointed questions at the president’s lawyers, who argued in an April 22 lawsuit that the committee’s sweeping subpoena to Mazars USA for the financial records of Trump and various associated entities since 2011 was not “a valid exercise of legislative power.”

  WaPo

Amit Mehta? Hoo-boy. He can look forward to some sliming. He's also an Obama appointee. So, maybe even death threats.

Douglas N. Letter, general counsel of the House of Representatives, replied that Trump’s claim of freedom from congressional oversight marked “a total, basic and fundamental misunderstanding” of the constitution, saying he would pronounce Congress “a nuisance … getting in his way while he’s trying to run the country.”

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“Is it your position that whether the president has properly reported his finances [under federal disclosure laws], that’s not subject to investigation by Congress?” Mehta asked.

“Say a president was involved in some corrupt enterprise, you mean to tell me because he is the president of the United States, Congress would not have power to investigate?” Mehta asked, continuing, what if “we’re talking about a presidential violation of a constitutional prohibition that only Congress has authority to approve,” such as the acceptance for emoluments or gifts from a foreign government.

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[Trump's atorney] answered yes, saying determining whether a president properly disclosed his finances was a “pure law enforcement function,” not a matter for Congress, whose fundamental duty he said is writing bills.

Maybe the judge should require the lawyer to take a basic civics course. Is he aware that the committee asking for the records is called the House Oversight and Reform committee?

And if Congress did seek to enact legislation, whether to tighten ethics requirements, fight public corruption or enforce a constitutional prohibition on acceptance of foreign emoluments a ban, Consovoy said, “I don’t think there is any permutation of any of these proposals that could pass constitutional muster,” because they would interfere with the president’s execution of his duties, or add qualifications for his office.

Maybe he can shadow a congress person for a day or two.

“There’s not a single Supreme Court or appellate case since 1880 that has found Congress overstepped its legislative authority by issuing a subpoena,” Mehta observed at another point.

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Mehta also questioned aspects of the House’s legal arguments, asking if Congress was claiming blanket authority to investigate matters by claiming a duty to “inform the public.”

“It really does open the door to the accusation, perhaps valid or not, that this really is an effort — if not to harass the president — then to get into his private affairs for political purposes, if there is no clear line as to what this investigation is about,” Mehta said. “How do I draw lines to test, even if it’s a soft test, the validity of what you’re doing? ”

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Mehta did not say when he would rule, but noted that a different House panel, the Financial Services Committee, is set to appear in federal court in Manhattan on May 22 to defend other subpoenas for Trump’s bank records issued to Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp. Trump and his three eldest children and companies have sued to quash the subpoenas.Mehta gave both sides until Saturday to file any additional submissions and promised a ruling “promptly, consistent with the gravity of the issues” involving the balancing of powers between Congress and a president.

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Mehta said at the end of Tuesday’s 80-minute hearing that he would also make clear in his opinion whether he would stay a subpoena, if he upholds it, to give the president time to appeal.

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[The defense attorney] said Congress’s function to “inform the public” about the president is a valid basis for the subpoena, citing past investigations into the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the origins of the Iraq War and former president Bill Clinton’s Whitewater land dealings.

But he said the House also had obvious legislative purposes to oversee the function of laws governing the financial disclosure of public officials and avoidance of conflicts of interests, the handling of presidential records and the prevention of foreign governments holding hidden financial influence over American elected officials.

“We need to know that. We need to know, is the president of the United States beholden to foreign interests, because they can hold things over his head?” Letter argued.

UPDATE:

UPDATE: