The US House Oversight Committee Thursday announced they had reached an agreement with former president Donald Trump to obtain financial documents involved in an investigation into alleged conflicts of interest, self-dealing and foreign financial ties. The committee first requested the documents from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, in 2019 and had been locked in court proceedings over their release since then.
The committee first launched its investigation into Trump’s potential conflicts of interest, inadequate financial disclosures, and violations of the Emoluments Clauses in January 2019. The committee’s interest in the Mazar financial documents originated with testimony from former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen. In February 2019, Cohen told the committee Trump “inflated his total assets when it served his purposes” or “deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.” To support his testimony, Cohen referred the committee to financial documents from 2011, 2012 and 2013 prepared by Mazars.
The committee issued a subpoena to Mazars requesting the relevant documents in March 2019. In response, Trump filed a lawsuit to prevent Mazars from turning over the documents. The legal dispute went the whole way up to the Supreme Court, where the court rejected Trump’s claim of executive privilege.
Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump and the committee continued their legal battle until reaching an agreement this Thursday. Under the agreement, Trump agrees not to further appeal a ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordering the release of the financial documents. Furthermore, under the agreement, Mazars agrees to comply and turn over the relevant financial documents as soon as possible.