The House Oversight and Reform Committee has requested financial documents on President Donald Trump’s bid to purchase the Buffalo Bills in 2014, a pair of top House Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.
According to Reps. Mark Meadows (R-NC) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), the request is part of a larger probe into the president’s previous business dealings in which Democrats are seeking 10 years worth of financial records from the accounting firm Mazars USA. The Republicans say former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s recent testimony, during which he alleged the president exaggerated his personal net worth in an effort to acquire the NFL team, likely triggered the fresh inquiry.
Politico reports:
Jordan and Meadows, two of the president’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, made the revelations in a letter to Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) in which they alleged that the request for such information about Trump “appears to depart from responsible and legitimate oversight,” and is intended “solely to embarrass President Trump and to advance the relentless Democrat attacks upon the Trump administration.” […]
The lawmakers sent a separate letter to Victor Wahba, the chairman and chief executive officer of Mazars USA, stating that Cummings did not consult with the GOP side of the committee before request the documents on Trump’s finances.
“We should not waste our limited resources and energies on matters that do not improve the operations of the federal government or better the lives of our constituents,” Meadows and Jordan wrote, describing Cummings’ inquiry “an ill-conceived inquiry into the finances of President Trump when he was a private citizen.”
In a statement to Politico, Cummings said of Meadows and Jordan’s letter: “They complain about everything I do,” before adding, “We’re just seeking the truth.”
Meanwhile, earlier this month, the House Judiciary Committee sent letters seeking documents from more than 80 groups, organizations, and individuals as part of the panel’s investigation into President Trump’s past commercial activities and campaign.
Thus far, past and current members of the president’s inner circle have complied with the sweeping request. Steve Bannon, the president’s former White House chief political strategist and former Breitbart News chairman, handed over 2,688 pages of information, while real estate tycoon and Trump’s inaugural committee chairman Thomas Barrack has provided more than 3,349 pages.
The new Democrat-led inquiry follows the release of Attorney General William Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his two-year investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion. According to Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s findings, the special counsel concluded the Trump campaign and Russia did not collude with one another despite repeated attempts by the latter.