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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. President Trump has

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Speaker 1: vowed to fight every congressional subpoena. His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani claims,

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Speaker 1: there's no basis for the subpoenas. I mean, you can

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Speaker 1: only go so far in harassing the president without violating

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Speaker 1: the Constitution. They have gone way past that line. Now.

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Speaker 1: President Trump and his children Don, junr Eric, and Ivanka

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Speaker 1: are suing to stop Deutsche Bank in Capital One from

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Speaker 1: complying with congressional subpoena's targeting his bank records. Joining me

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Speaker 1: as Brad Moss apartment Mark Zad Brad in fighting the

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Speaker 1: subpoena of the President's attorneys are basically relying on that

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Speaker 1: term presidential harassment. Tell us about the claims here by Trump, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is very much a political stall tactic in a

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Speaker 1: pr lawsuit, more or less by the President and his businesses.

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Speaker 1: The essence of their claim their defense to the subpoenas

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Speaker 1: and why they're suing you know, places like Deutsche Bank

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Speaker 1: is claiming that the supoenas are themselves illegal, they don't

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Speaker 1: serve any legislative purpose and therefore have no basis in

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Speaker 1: law as a you know, subsidve matter. Will this likely

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Speaker 1: succeed No, Um, The purpose of the lawsuits, as far

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Speaker 1: as I'm concerned, is to just drag out the process,

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Speaker 1: to delay as long as possible, um the extent to

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Speaker 1: which uh the different financial institutions will turn over documentation,

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Speaker 1: and to limit or to minimize the possibility of that

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Speaker 1: kind of information coming out in a way that would

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Speaker 1: damage the president politically. How long can this really be delayed?

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Speaker 1: It'll go to a federal judge who will rule on

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Speaker 1: it and probably issued an injunction. Then it goes to

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Speaker 1: appellate court, and the Supreme Court will likely, if it's

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Speaker 1: appeal there, take it and expedite it. Yeah. The problem is,

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Speaker 1: you know, unless there is a basis to seek you know,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, media preliminary injunctions and line along those

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Speaker 1: lines are a temporary restraining order. Unless it's a way

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Speaker 1: to truly expledit this through the system. It will take

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Speaker 1: several months, if not at least a year or two

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Speaker 1: for it to work its way through the courts, and

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Speaker 1: that's enough time at least to get the president passed election,

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Speaker 1: which has got to be his ultimate goal right now

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Speaker 1: is simply to get reelected. So if that is the

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Speaker 1: true purpose of this, they're already just by mirror issue

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Speaker 1: existence of the lawsuits themselves, They're likely going to push

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Speaker 1: this stuff off and it becomes a good political tool

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Speaker 1: the president can use. He can show it to his

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Speaker 1: base that he's fighting back against what they view as

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Speaker 1: overreached by the Democrats and what Eric Trump has called,

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Speaker 1: you know, deep state at work. It plays into the

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Speaker 1: political narrative the president pushes and that he'll be using

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Speaker 1: on the campaign trail because in the end, they just

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Speaker 1: they don't want to turn over this docpetition. Eventually, you know,

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Speaker 1: they'll have to turn over some of it. They're just

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Speaker 1: trying to delay when it comes out. So some of

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Speaker 1: the records are already part of the Houses investigation. At

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Speaker 1: that public hearing in February, Michael Cohen issued copies of

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Speaker 1: Trump's financial statements where he claimed that it was inflated

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Speaker 1: to get a loan to place a bid on the

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Speaker 1: Buffalo bills, and there was that thirty five thousand dollar

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Speaker 1: copy of a check that Trump wrote to Cohen from

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Speaker 1: his personal checking account with capital and financial So shouldn't

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Speaker 1: those at least be turned over. Well, those and the

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Speaker 1: houses already in you know, the seat of those. The

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Speaker 1: subpoenas are far broader than that, and they're trying to

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Speaker 1: fill in a lot of gaps. And Michael Cohen only

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Speaker 1: had fragments of the record Elliott portions of the information.

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Speaker 1: These subpoenas are going after information along those lines, but

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Speaker 1: also in a far broader, more of a counter intelligence aspect.

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Speaker 1: You know. The House Intelligence Committee in particular is worried

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Speaker 1: about exposure of president might have two foreign actors due

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Speaker 1: to where his finances are tied up in me but

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Speaker 1: the bulk of his loans and money is tied up

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Speaker 1: in Deutsche Bank, which is a foreign bank in which

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Speaker 1: has been repeatedly fined over the last few years for

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Speaker 1: serving as a cover for Russian money laundering operations. So

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Speaker 1: there is a concern amongst some Democrats that the president,

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Speaker 1: whether knowingly or unknowingly, is financially exposed to adversarial foreign actors.

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Speaker 1: And that's part of where these subpoenas are going after.

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Speaker 1: And this is only in terms of what the House

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Speaker 1: is going after. This lawsuit does not necessarily address what

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Speaker 1: federal law enforcement authorities may have already sought out for

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Speaker 1: these institutions. What do you believe that Robert Mueller had

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Speaker 1: copies of President Trump's tax returns? I have been very

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Speaker 1: skeptical that Robert Mueller went down that path, if for

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Speaker 1: no other reason than if he had done so, I

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Speaker 1: have to imagine there would have been a legal fight

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Speaker 1: we would have heard about, because that's kind of one

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Speaker 1: of those redlines for the president. UM. I don't necessarily

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Speaker 1: think Robert Muller ultimately viewed the tax returns as necessary

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Speaker 1: irrelevant to the scope of his inquiry. I think that's

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Speaker 1: more of a likelihood for the Southern District of New York,

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Speaker 1: where there's a lot more inquiries into the president's finances,

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Speaker 1: and the way I viewed the Muller report reading through it,

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Speaker 1: I ultimately don't think Muller viewed the president's details of

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Speaker 1: his finances from his tax returns something that played a

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Speaker 1: role beyond what we know about with Trump Tower Moscow. Now,

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Speaker 1: if prosecutors, let's say the Southern District requests subpoena's President

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Speaker 1: Trump's tax returns. Let's say, are they likely to get

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Speaker 1: them ultimately in the end, yes, will he put up

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Speaker 1: a fight without question? And again there it's all about

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Speaker 1: a delay tactic. You know, was about a House one

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Speaker 1: of the financial committees is asking for the copy of

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Speaker 1: the tax returns. We're almost certainly to hear from Treasury

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Speaker 1: on May six. If they're not going to turn it over,

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Speaker 1: even though the law doesn't really afford them that discretion,

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Speaker 1: there will be a fight in the court. The president's

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Speaker 1: goal is to delay it unto last November. At that point,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't care. He doesn't care if he is lost.

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Speaker 1: He's not going to care because it's not gonna matter anymore.

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Speaker 1: And if he has won, there's no re election fight

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Speaker 1: coming up ahead. There's no real damage that it could

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Speaker 1: pose to him, even if he were to lose. On

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Speaker 1: that context, this is all about a delay, all right.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, is there anything else that

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Speaker 1: the House committees can do? For example, with Stephen Manuchian,

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Speaker 1: there's been talk about even you know, having him arrested

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Speaker 1: or withholding funding from various you know, agencies of government

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Speaker 1: in order to get those are that is that possible?

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Speaker 1: About a minute here for you units. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: that's more that's more political hyperbole in the end, and

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Speaker 1: for some lawmakers talk about that, that's not really gonna happen.

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Speaker 1: They're not gonna arrest Steve Nutans, they're gonna hold people

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Speaker 1: in contempt. They're not going to pursue it eminally anymore

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Speaker 1: than it was pursued against Eric Holder in the Obam administration.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna be a lot of politics that will make

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Speaker 1: for a great thirty second add to November. So all

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Speaker 1: these subpoenas are likely able to be put off past two,

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Speaker 1: pushed off and delayed in terms of their implementation. Yes,

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Speaker 1: in the end until after the election most likely. All Right,

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Speaker 1: thanks so much, Brad. That's Brad Moss. He's a partner

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Speaker 1: at mark Z. 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 Brasso.

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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. Yeah, yea