Judge who upheld Trump subpoena donated to Dems on committee seeking the records
The New York federal judge who ruled on Wednesday
that the Trump administration must comply with two subpoenas from the
House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees has donated in the
past to a slew of big-name Democrats -- including two who currently sit
on those committees, according to federal election filings.
After an hour of oral arguments, Barack Obama-appointed
U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos ruled the subpoenas to Deutsche
Bank and Capital One have "a legitimate legislative purpose," and that
Trump was unlikely to prevail in a lawsuit to quash the requests. Judges
have the option to recuse themselves if there is an appearance of bias. Federal election records show
that, when he was a partner at the law firm Day Pitney LLP and before
he was appointed to the bench in 2011, Ramos sent $350 to Connecticut
Democrat Rep. Jim Himes from 2007 to 2008, as well as $500 to elect New
York Rep. Nydia Velazquez in 2010.
Himes sits on both the Intelligence and Financial Services Committees, while Velazquez sits on Financial Services.
(U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos (Federal Bar Council))
Ramos
also contributed $1,000 to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's Senate campaign in
2009, another $1,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee,
and several thousand dollars over several years to Obama for America.
His political donations apparently stopped after his elevation to the
judgeship, in line with ethical standards.
Trump’s lawyers had
asked Ramos to temporarily block Congress from gaining access to the
records. They said it was a "safe bet" they would appeal his decision.
Ramos' ruling came two days after another federal judge in Washington upheld a separate congressional subpoena seeking financial documents dating back to 2011 from Trump accounting firm Mazars USA.
That judge, Obama appointee Amit Mehta, donated to the Obama-Biden campaign in 2012.
The
White House has aggressively pushed back against Democrat-led
investigations in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report,
saying Democrats simply want a "do-over" of Mueller's lengthy
investigation that ultimately found no evidence of any Trump-Russia
collusion.
Trump this week blocked former White House lawyer Don
McGhan, a central figure in Mueller's report, from appearing before the
House Judiciary Committee.
Some congressional Republicans have
also characterized the subpoenas as an abuse of authority and blasted
the Trump-focused investigations.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the
ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, called the inquiry into
Mazars USA "an unprecedented abuse of the Committee’s subpoena
authority to target and expose the private financial information of the
President of the United States.” Fox News' Bill Mears contributed to this report.
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