The House Oversight Committee has postponed its deadline to subpoena President Donald Trump’s financial records pending a court ruling on the matter.
The committee will wait until after a court rules on a lawsuit filed by Trump’s legal team on Monday regarding those financial records. It’s the latest push by the House Oversight Committee to learn more about the president’s business dealings, and what those records may or may not contain. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) is a member of the committee.
This investigation is one of several by various house committees launched into the president’s business and personal financial records. Trump’s lawyers argue this is an overreach by the committee because it has nothing to do with writing bills.
Also this week, former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline defied a subpoena to appear before the Oversight Committee. Now, Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) is floating the idea of holding Kline in contempt of Congress. The matter at hand surrounds White House security clearances and why some officials were given clearances despite “disqualifying issues” in their background.
While Republicans have bashed Democrats for playing politics with the president’s financial records, she said it wasn’t too long ago that Republicans supported the committee’s investigations, notably examining White House security clearances.
“Some of the information that we have been requesting from the White House and others were letters that, in the last Congress, Republicans also signed onto, they said they had concerns over security clearances,” Plaskett told USVI News. “But actually, when the rubber met the road of individuals coming to the committee to actually speak on it, that’s when they pulled back on it.”
Earlier this month, the top Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee formally requested President Trump’s tax returns. The Treasury Department has once again pushed back the deadline to hand over those records to May 6.
