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U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington also denied a
request by Trump to stay his decision pending an appeal.
Last Tuesday Mehta heard oral arguments on whether Mazars LLP
must comply with a House of Representatives Oversight Committee
subpoena.
Mehta said in Monday's ruling that the committee "has shown that
it is not engaged in a pure fishing expedition for the
President's financial records" and that the Mazars documents
might assist Congress in passing laws and performing other core
functions.
"It is simply not fathomable that a Constitution that grants
Congress the power to remove a President for reasons including
criminal behavior would deny Congress the power to investigate
him for unlawful conduct - past or present - even without
formally opening an impeachment inquiry," Mehta said.
Mehta said Mazars has seven days to comply with the subpoena.
It was the first time a federal court had waded into the tussle
about how far Congress can go in probing Trump and his business
affairs.
Trump told reporters the decision was "crazy" and that it would
be appealed.
"It's totally the wrong decision by obviously an Obama-appointed
judge," Trump said.
Trump is refusing to cooperate with a series of investigations
on issues ranging from his tax returns and policy decisions to
his Washington hotel and his children's security clearances.
The standoff deepened on Monday when Trump told former White
House counsel Don McGahn to defy a subpoena to testify about
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation before a
different congressional committee.
Trump's lawyers have argued that Congress is on a quest to "turn
up something that Democrats can use as a political tool against
the president now and in the 2020 election."
The House Oversight Committee claims sweeping investigative
power and says it needs Trump's financial records to examine
whether he has conflicts of interest or broke the law by not
disentangling himself from his business holdings, as previous
presidents did.
Lawyers for Trump and the Trump Organization, his company, last
month filed a lawsuit to block the committee's subpoena, saying
it exceeded Congress' constitutional limits.
Mehta was appointed in 2014 by Democratic former President
Barack Obama, who was often investigated by Republicans in
Congress during his two terms in office.
Mazars has avoided taking sides in the dispute and said it will
"comply with all legal obligations."
The ruling was "a resounding victory for the rule of law,"
Elijah Cummings, the House Oversight Committee chairman, said in
a statement.
"Congress must have access to the information we need to do our
job effectively and efficiently, and we urge the President to
stop engaging in this unprecedented cover-up and start complying
with the law," Cummings said.
A judge in Manhattan will hear arguments on May 22 in a similar
lawsuit Trump filed to block subpoenas issued to Deutsche Bank
AG and Capital One Financial Corp.
Mehta's ruling "will probably have considerable weight in
similar factual contexts where the House is seeking other
records," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of
Richmond.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Writing by Jan Wolfe and Howard Goller;
Editing by Dan Grebler, Grant McCool and James Dalgleish)
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