washingtonpost.com/...
The Washington Post has a not too long article dated this afternoon about the 3 judge panel asking the 2 big banks’ attorneys if Trumps tax returns are included in the paperwork the House Finance and House Intel committees have requested.
NEW YORK — Attorneys for Deutsche Bank and Capital One repeatedly refused to tell a federal appeals court Friday whether the banks have President Trump’s tax returns, citing “contractual obligations” for rebuffing the court’s questions.
Toward the end of Friday’s hearing, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit considering the appeal asked the banks’ attorneys whether the documents subject to the subpoenas could potentially include the president’s tax returns.
“We’re not in a position to answer that question,” said Raphael Prober, the attorney for Deutsche Bank, the president’s largest creditor.
“I am not asking you for the content" of the returns, Judge Jon O. Newman said.
“It is a fairly important question in this case,” Newman said.
Prober and Capital One’s attorney, James Murphy, both said “contractual obligations" prevented the banks from answering the judges’ questions.
As the judges appeared to grow frustrated by the attorneys’ resistance, Judge Peter Hall added: “Should we go to court and seek an order? I’m serious. We need to know.”
The banks, which have not publicly taken a position on Trump’s efforts to block the subpoenas, agreed to provide the appeals court a letter within 48 hours addressing the matter, but it was unclear what the letters would specify or whether they would be made public.
Trump’s attorney Patrick Strawbridge told the court something about how unfair this all is and no sitting president has ever been made to do this. In other words, poor prez, he’s really the victim here.
Kinda funny how these bank attorneys were caught off guard with the judges question.
Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chair of the Financial Services Committee, and Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, have said they want to examine the relationship between Trump and Deutsche Bank as part of a larger examination of Russian money laundering and potential foreign influence on Trump.
The banks agreed to provide the appeals court a letter within 48 hours addressing the matter. Course we may never know what that letter will say. I bet Rachel will say something about this tonight.