Trump has been trying to keep his shady finances a secret for years, but that time is drawing to an end.
Trump keeps going to court to try to block congressional access to his financial records, but it turns out that Congress already has some of them.
At least two banks — Wells Fargo and TD Bank — have provided documents to the House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters. The committee needed to subpoena records from nine financial institutions because untangling Trump's finances is a mess. His most recent financial disclosure shows he has a stake in over 500 corporate entities.
A source who has seen the records told NBC News that Wells Fargo has handed over a "few thousand" documents, while TD has only provided "a handful." Meanwhile, the Royal Bank of Canada is also in the process of complying with the subpoena issued by Waters' committee. Some of the remaining banks — Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Toronto-Dominion Bank, and JP Morgan Chase — missed a May 6 deadline for complying with the subpoena.
The contents of the subpoenas aren't public, but a person who has seen them said they've been issued under the Bank Secrecy Act. That Act gives Congress the authority to examine financial information to search for evidence of money laundering.
Trump is right to be scared of what Rep. Waters and her committee might find. After the New York Times reported that Deutsche Bank employees were blocked from reporting Trump's suspicious transactions to the government, it's more apparent than ever that congressional oversight is needed.
As Rep. Waters said, "as the Financial Services Committee examines and considers reforms to our nation's anti-money laundering laws, we must consider issues as whether bank executives have too much discretion in the process for reporting suspicious financial activity."
Trump isn't just facing the problem of having some of his lenders voluntarily turn over his financial information. There's also the fact that he keeps losing court battles to try to keep some of it secret.
On Monday, a federal judge ruled that Trump couldn't order his accounting firm Mazars to ignore a Congressional subpoena. And then Wednesday, a different federal judge held that Trump can't block Deutsche Bank from complying with a subpoena for his financial records.
Add to that the fact that New York state just passed a bill that would allow Congress to get Trump's state tax returns, and things aren't looking good for Trump.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
