Trump v. Committee on Oversight and Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives, No. 19-cv-01136 (APM). President Trump sued to block a House Oversight Committee subpoena to Mazars USA LLP for personal and business financial records dating to 2011. On May 20, 2019, Mehta issued a memorandum opinion dismissing the complaint and declining to quash the subpoena. Reported cite: 380 F. Supp. 3d 76 (D.D.C. 2019).
The opinion states that so long as Congress investigates a subject on which legislation could be had, it acts as contemplated by Article I, and that the court would not peer behind Congress’s stated motives for political intent. A district-court ruling upholding a subpoena is not a finding of a crime and is not a Supreme Court holding.
The D.C. Circuit affirmed. On July 9, 2020, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded in Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, 591 U.S. 848 (2020), holding that the courts below had not taken adequate account of separation-of-powers concerns when a House subpoena seeks a President’s personal information. Vacatur is status. It does not erase that Mehta wrote the first opinion.