Donald Trump’s former longtime accounting firm has begun turning over financial records to Congress as part of lawmakers’ investigation into the former president’s business practices, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Mazars USA cut ties with Trump and his businesses in February after the firm said it could no longer stand behind financial information that had been provided by Trump and his operations. Consequently, financial statements Mazars prepared for Trump from mid-2011 to mid-2020 “should no longer be relied upon,” the company warned.
The House Oversight Committee has received a first batch of documents from Mazars following a legal settlement regarding various financial information from 2014 to 2018, the Times reported.
More documents are expected to be provided in the near future, according to the newspaper.
“They have sent us a number of documents. We’re reviewing them,” committee Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) told the Times Saturday. “Mazars is being very cooperative,” she added.
The lawmaker declined to offer any other specifics.
The committee will use the information in its investigation of allegations of conflict of interest when Trump was in office, and any possible violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. The clause prohibits federal officials from receiving payments or significantly valuable gifts from foreign governments.
Financial records that must be turned over to Congress under the settlement include any document that indicates false or undisclosed information about Trump or his companies’ assets, income or liabilities.
Documents from 2016 to 2018 related to the Old Post Office Building, which the former president converted into the Trump International Hotel, must also be provided under terms of the settlement. The hotel, once termed the “epicenter” of corruption by a local watchdog, was frequented by politicians — both domestic and foreign — while Trump was in office.
In addition, Mazars must turn over records from 2017 and 2018 related to relationships between Trump’s businesses and foreign nations.
Mazars cut ties with Trump amid an investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James into allegations that the Trump Organization has inflated the value of assets to obtain bank loans, while undervaluing properties when it came time to pay taxes.
After Mazars ended its relationship with Trump, he claimed the accounting firm had been “broken by radical leftist racist prosecutors,” but offered no credible details.
Trump battled Congress in court to keep the financial documents secret, but the Oversight Committee announced a settlement of the litigation Sept. 1.
“After numerous court victories, I am pleased that my Committee has now reached an agreement to obtain key financial documents that former President Trump fought for years to hide from Congress,” Maloney said in a statement after settlement.
“These documents will inform the committee’s efforts to get to the bottom of former President Trump’s egregious conduct and ensure that future presidents do not abuse their position of power for personal gain,” the statement added.
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