House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., has requested a decade’s worth of President Donald Trump’s financial records from an accounting firm that prepared several years of financial statements for Trump.
The statements were produced by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, as evidence to support his claim that Trump had submitted false financial statements to a bank and an insurance company.
The move by Cummings represents an escalation of congressional Democrats’ longstanding interest in obtaining Trump’s financial records.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., has requested a decade’s worth of President Donald Trump’s financial records from an accounting firm that prepared several years of financial statements for Trump, according to a letter Cummings sent on March 20, but which was only released on Wednesday.
The move represents an escalation of congressional Democrats’ longstanding interest in obtaining Trump’s financial records. Trump refused to release his tax returns during his 2016 presidential campaign, making him the first major party nominee not to do so in three decades.
Cummings’ letter is addressed to Victor Wahba, CEO of Mazars USA, a New York-based accounting firm that prepared statements of financial condition for Trump covering 2011, 2012 and 2013, that were prepared to help the real estate mogul secure a loan. Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal lawyer, turned those documents over to the committee this year ahead of his February 27 testimony.
Cohen provided the documents as evidence to support his claim that Trump had submitted false financial statements to Deutsche Bank in order to get financing to buy the Buffalo Bills NFL team. Cohen also alleged that Trump submitted false information to an insurance company, and that he may have deflated the value of his real estate assets in order to lower his tax bill.
The documents signed by Mazars, Cummings wrote to Wahba, “raise questions about the President’s representations of his financial affairs on these forms and on other disclosures, particularly relating to the President’s debts.”
