COF Capital One Financial Corporation

By Byron Tau and Corinne Ramey 

President Trump's legal showdown with Congress may prompt a protracted battle that could last well beyond his current term in office and pose a significant challenge to the authority of House Democrats who are seeking documents related to his business.

Mr. Trump is likely to lose in the courts, experts said, although they added he could run out the clock leading up to the 2020 election.

On Monday, Mr. Trump's lawyers filed suit in New York against Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp. to prevent the banks from turning over a decade's worth of financial records sought by two congressional committees.

Last week, his lawyers filed a similar suit in D.C. seeking to prevent his accounting firm Mazars USA LLP from responding to a different subpoena. And his Treasury Department last week missed a deadline to turn over his tax records to a House committee in what is likely to result in yet another legal battle.

Mr. Trump's defiant legal strategy faces long odds in the courts, experts said. Judges have repeatedly affirmed the power of Congress to investigate a wide array of matters and to issue subpoenas. But the litigation could easily take years, according to legal experts.

"It's hard for me to imagine the suits actually succeeding. It seems like the House has perfectly good reasons for subpoenaing this material, " said Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Cornell and an expert on congressional power. "I think a big part of what Trump is trying to do here is not to win but to run out the clock."

Congress has broad subpoena powers that go beyond passing legislation, experts said. For that reason, any court asked to limit congressional subpoena power is likely to tread very lightly -- even when the records concern the president of the United States.

"Historically, judges have been reluctant to limit congressional subpoenas based on the judge's personal assessment of the merit of the underlying investigation," said Harry Sandick, a defense lawyer in New York who has represented clients who have received congressional subpoenas.

"If he can tie up the congressional inquiries in court battles for as long as possible, he can hope to ride out the controversy until after the election," Mark Zauderer, a lawyer in New York, said of a possible Trump legal strategy.

A recent legal challenge to Congress came on Monday night, when lawyers representing Mr. Trump and his three adult children sued Deutsche Bank and Capital One in New York federal court. The two banks had received subpoenas from the House Intelligence and House Financial Services committees for a wide swath of Mr. Trump's records.

"We remain committed to providing appropriate information to all authorized investigations and will abide by a court order regarding such investigations," a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman said. Representatives of Capital One declined to comment.

In their complaint, lawyers for Mr. Trump claim Congress isn't empowered to issue such subpoenas, largely, they argue, because they have nothing to do with making laws, the chief job granted to Congress in the U.S. Constitution. Lawyers for Mr. Trump also claim the subpoena violates a federal law that protects financial privacy.

"The subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One lack any legitimate legislative purpose," the complaint said. "With these subpoenas, the Committees are instead assuming the powers of the Department of Justice."

A second suit against Mazars from a different set of attorneys representing Mr. Trump's lawyers filed last week in D.C. alleges that House Democrats have "declared all-out political war" against him. A lawyer for Mazars didn't respond to a request for comment after the suit was filed.

Democrats in Congress appeared confident that they would prevail in any legal fight.

"We have representation from Deutsche and Capital One that they will cooperate with us. So he can file his lawsuits. They need a subpoena to do what they need to do to give us the documents," said Rep. Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee.

"So far his lawsuits aren't doing any good," Ms. Waters added.

Congress's oversight responsibilities include ensuring that Mr. Trump had no conflicts of interest that would affect his policies, said Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the intelligence committee.

"Our interest is whether there is any financial entanglement motivating the president's policies towards Russia or Saudi Arabia or any other foreign interest," said Mr. Schiff in an interview.

"I think we're going to have to fight to make sure that Congress can hold an administration accountable for corruption or malfeasance, and there's a lot at stake in this fight, so we're going to need to look at how we enforce this through the courts," Mr. Schiff said.

In another ongoing battle between the House and Mr. Trump, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. ruled on Tuesday that a lawsuit brought by Democratic lawmakers against President Trump can proceed. It alleges that Mr. Trump, by maintaining ownership of his businesses while in office, is violating a constitutional provision known as the emoluments clause, which bans foreign gifts to officeholders.

One example of how Mr. Trump might benefit from foreign patronage of his businesses is the Trump International Hotel, where a number of foreign guests, some of them high-ranking officials, have stayed.

Congressional subpoenas carry the same force of law as if they were issued by a grand jury or a judge, but lawmakers have long struggled to enforce them when witnesses don't want to cooperate. Congress can ask the Justice Department to bring criminal charges, or it can file its own civil suit. A little-used power allows Congress to take a reluctant witness into custody, but it was last deployed nearly a century ago.

Siobhan Hughes, Jenny Strasburg, Kristina Peterson, and Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.

Write to Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com and Corinne Ramey at Corinne.Ramey@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 30, 2019 19:37 ET (23:37 GMT)

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