Today, at a full Financial Services Committee markup of five bills, the Committee will consider Committee Democrats’ Resolution of Inquiry, which directs Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to provide Congress with documents on the financial dealings of President Trump, his family members, and his associates. In her opening statement, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of Financial Services Committee, highlighted the need for bipartisanship in order to hold the Trump Administration accountable.
As Prepared for Delivery
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, several of the bills the Committee will consider today are the product of bipartisan collaboration. I’d like to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for working together on those bills to develop commonsense solutions to improve our financial system.
The spirit of bipartisanship must begin to extend to another area – that of holding President Trump accountable.
So far, Committee Democrats’ efforts to scrutinize the financial dealings of President Trump, his family members, and his associates, have not been joined by the Majority. For example, in March of this year, I and other Committee Democrats wrote a letter to the Chairman requesting that, given the Trump Administration’s serious conflicts of interest in the matter, the Committee assess the integrity of the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into Deutsche Bank’s Russian money-laundering scheme, and that the Committee conduct its own investigation of that matter. That letter went unanswered.
Committee Democrats want to get to the bottom of what Donald Trump is hiding when it comes to his finances. Why does Trump refuse to reveal his tax returns to the public? Why was Deutsche Bank—a bank that has been fined large sums for Russian money laundering and many other violations of the law—willing to lend hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump after his bankruptcies when no other bank would lend to him? Why, according to press reports, have around 70 percent of Trump’s real estate property sales over the past 12 months been to secretive shell companies? And why is Trump sizing up the scope of his presidential pardon powers?
The American public deserves to know the answers to these questions. Nearly every day, a troubling new revelation emerges about the President, his family, and his associates. As Members of Congress, and as members of this Committee, we have an obligation to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch, and of President Trump.
To that end, I and other Democrats on the Committee have introduced a Resolution of Inquiry, directing the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury to provide any documents that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has pertaining to the President, his immediate family, his associates and foreign financial accounts, credit extended by, or involving Russian Banks or Russian government officials, money laundering violations, violations of U.S. sanctions, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or the Logan Act. I and other Democrats previously wrote to the Treasury Department to request information on Trump, his family, and his associates but received no response.
I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us in this effort, and in our other efforts to investigate the financial dealings of Trump, his family members, and his associates. This is not a matter of politics; it is a matter of national security and the integrity of the presidency.
