House Democrats got a secret four week head start on Donald Trump’s financial records

| 6:43 pm EDT April 4, 2019
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This week we’ve seen House Democrats vote to subpoena the Mueller report, we’ve seen House Democrats serve subpoenas in Donald Trump’s security clearance scandal, and we’ve seen House Democrats formally seek Trump’s tax returns from the Treasury Department. If it feels like things are suddenly off to the races this week, they are. But it turns out House Democrats got a secret four week head start in one aspect of Trump’s scandals.

The chairs of three House committees jointly asked Capital One back on March 11th begin preserving all of its financial documents related to Donald Trump, and is prepared to hand over the documents to the House Democrats once they’re subpoenaed, according to a new report tonight from Politico. In Palmer Report’s view, this is a big deal for three reasons.

First, this reveals that House Democrats have more strategies in play than meets the eye. Even as some frustrated observers on social media yell “Why don’t the Democrats do something,” it turns out the Democrats have been doing quite a bit. It just hasn’t all been out in public view, which means that Donald Trump hasn’t been able to properly play defense. Second, this shows that when it comes to companies like Capital One, who have a reputation to protect, they’re going to eagerly sell Trump out to the House Democrats in order to protect themselves.

Third, Politico says that House Democrats requested the Trump financial documents from Capital One as a result of Michael Cohen’s testimony, and that these documents “might have been turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller.” This suggests that Mueller was indeed investigating Trump’s finances after all, and that this dirt could be in Mueller’s still-secret report. Either way, House Democrats are already retracing Mueller’s steps and producing the same evidence, before the Mueller report surfaces. William Barr can’t protect Donald Trump much longer.