Washington, D.C. -Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, released a letter he sent to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mazars USA LLP on March 20, 2019, requesting documents relating to the Committee’s investigation into allegations that President Donald Trump inflated or deflated financial statements for potentially improper purposes. The allegations were supported by corroborating documents produced to the Committee by the President’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Mr. Cohen produced to the Committee financial statements from 2011, 2012, and 2013 that raise questions about the President’s representations of his financial affairs on these forms and on other disclosures, particularly relating to the President’s debts," Cummings wrote. “Several of these documents appear to have been signed by your firm.
The Committee requested responsive documents by April 3, 2019.
Rather than join this search for the facts, Republicans are directly interfering with the Committee’s investigation by writing directly to the accounting firm with the apparent purpose of encouraging them not to cooperate.
Cummings issued the following statement in response to the Republican letter today:
“I suppose it is no longer a surprise that Republicans on the Oversight Committee are now opposed to oversight itself-especially since a Republican entered the White House. If they had their way, the Committee would just close up shop for the next two years, but that is not what the American people elected us to do. We are following-up on specific allegations regarding the President’s actions based on corroborating documents obtained by the Committee, and we will continue our efforts to conduct credible, robust, and independent oversight."
