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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Deutsche Bank confirmed

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Speaker 1: that it has text returns requested by US lawmakers who

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Speaker 1: are seeking financial information for President Trump and his family.

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Speaker 1: Don't jump to the conclusions, though just whose returns those

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Speaker 1: are remains a redacted secret, so we don't really know

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Speaker 1: if Democrats are any closer to getting their hands on

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Speaker 1: President Trump's tax info. In a separate letter, Capital One

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Speaker 1: said it does not possess any tax returns responsive to

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Speaker 1: the subpoena. Bloomberg News legal reporter Chris Dormice joins us

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Speaker 1: now with more on this. Chris, thanks for being with us.

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Speaker 1: So where do we stand on this right now? Have

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Speaker 1: the judges sort of approved handing this information over or not? No,

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Speaker 1: not at all. In fact, that's what we're waiting for.

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Speaker 1: There were arguments on Friday um and Trump's appeal of

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Speaker 1: an order basically dismissing his suit seeking to block the

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Speaker 1: subpoenas and the judges. It was a pretty long hearing,

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Speaker 1: it was too and about two and a half hours

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Speaker 1: of pretty intense questioning of attorneys for both sides, and

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Speaker 1: what where we are now kind of led directly from

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Speaker 1: that because at the end of the hearing the judges

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Speaker 1: brought up the banks lawyers and asked them if they

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Speaker 1: had the tax returns, and in a kind of remarkable exchange,

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Speaker 1: declined to say whether they had them or not. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then the judges asked them to submit these letters,

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Speaker 1: which they did yesterday UM where deutsch Back confirmed that

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Speaker 1: it has some of the tax returns that were requested,

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Speaker 1: while as you said, redacting the names. So we're waiting

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Speaker 1: for the bench to make it, you know, a judgment

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Speaker 1: on this appeal. Who knows how long they will take,

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Speaker 1: given the length of the arguments, could be some time.

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Speaker 1: By giving the prominence of the issue, they may do

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Speaker 1: it sooner than later. Now, these banks, as I take it,

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Speaker 1: have been handling this very carefully, very sensitively, because their

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Speaker 1: privacy reputation is at stake here. That's certainly true, and

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Speaker 1: you're certainly right. They have tread very carefully in what

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Speaker 1: they've said about these records. They were very very careful

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Speaker 1: about their speech on Friday and what they said, and

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Speaker 1: in the letter they kind of were a little less hesitant,

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Speaker 1: but they were expounded on the notion that they have

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Speaker 1: their own privacy rules and the statutes may prevent them

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Speaker 1: from giving out information while not wanting to really stone

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Speaker 1: wall the court and not give them anything. So basically,

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Speaker 1: we've got Deutsche Bank saying, yes, we do have some

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Speaker 1: information that's responsive to this subpoena, but we don't know

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Speaker 1: whose information it might be. Any educated guests, I mean,

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Speaker 1: some of surmise just based on what's there that it

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Speaker 1: could only be Trump, but I it's kind of hard

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Speaker 1: to make that determination directly from the from the from

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Speaker 1: the document. Now, Trump isn't the only uh person who

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Speaker 1: the Democrats have subpoena information from, right His children and

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Speaker 1: his businesses as well have have have been UH subpoena.

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Speaker 1: So this theoretically, this information could be from from one

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Speaker 1: of them. Uh, it could theoretically, And as they said

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Speaker 1: that they they kind of laid out that it was

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Speaker 1: only probably one or two people. It wasn't clear that

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Speaker 1: it was even just one person. Um, but yes, it

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Speaker 1: could be from them, Although the letter definitely indicated it

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Speaker 1: was a person, so individuals. And is it likely that

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Speaker 1: down the road the American people would be able to

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Speaker 1: see any of the information or would this be held

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Speaker 1: closely by the Democrats? Well, that's really up to the Democrats. Um.

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Speaker 1: There are um certain laws applying to tax information that

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Speaker 1: could um, you know, require them to be kept private.

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Speaker 1: But that's it's up to the committees what it wants

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Speaker 1: to do with the information once it gets it, um.

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Speaker 1: And really I would just be speculating as to what

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Speaker 1: that would be. Now, how how much could this a

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Speaker 1: legal challenge that the president is waging here? How long

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Speaker 1: could could this theoretically go? I mean, when when you're

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Speaker 1: at the circuit, when you're the appeals Court, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of the second level of the justice system here,

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Speaker 1: it's always a possibility that it could go to the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court. And especially when there's an issue this kind

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Speaker 1: of um ripe and prominent. Um. It's certainly probably an

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Speaker 1: issue for the Supreme Court at some point, given their

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Speaker 1: multiple um proceedings going on in regards to these denus,

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Speaker 1: so that it could be protected perhaps until the president

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Speaker 1: leaves office. Yeah, that's certainly a possibility. I mean, as

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Speaker 1: we've seen with nearly all of the court cases that

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Speaker 1: involved Donald Trump, whether when he was president or before

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Speaker 1: he was president, they have one kind of overarching theme,

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Speaker 1: and that's that they tend to take a long time

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Speaker 1: to play out. Now, have the Democrats had anything to

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Speaker 1: say about this? Well, not in in regard to this

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Speaker 1: specific issue about the tax returns. They've said that, um,

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Speaker 1: you know they have. They submitted a letter separately yesterday

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Speaker 1: saying that a law that would prohibit certain disclosures of

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Speaker 1: tax returns or information from those returns doesn't apply if

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Speaker 1: the bank's got the information from Trump or the plaintiffs

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Speaker 1: and not from the i R S. And they also

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Speaker 1: said that it wouldn't apply even if they got the

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Speaker 1: information from the i R S if they gave consent

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Speaker 1: to request that information. So what would the protection extend

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Speaker 1: to that information if the president presumed that he was

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Speaker 1: giving it to the bank, he wouldn't necessarily presume he

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Speaker 1: was making a public Uh, that's a good point. I

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Speaker 1: don't know, um really at this point. You know, if

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Speaker 1: they have what returns they have, if they were given

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Speaker 1: on consent um or if he gave them to them

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Speaker 1: with the expectation that they would be private. Um. The

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Speaker 1: banks have certainly kind of pointed to they have their

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Speaker 1: own customer agreements that would make some of it private.

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Speaker 1: But certainly that is something that the Democrats have argued,

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Speaker 1: is that by handing this over at all, there is

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Speaker 1: no intention to be private. Thanks to Bloomberg News legal

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Speaker 1: reporter Chris Dolmets, thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast.

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Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso.

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Duk the Tent du the s