国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Trump loses for 2nd time within week in legal fight to conceal financial records_时事

国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Trump loses for 2nd time within week in legal fight to conceal financial records

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 -- A U.S. federal appeals court ruled Friday to uphold an earlier subpoena ordering that President Donald Trump's accountants hand his financial records over to Congress for investigation, marking the president's second defeat within a week in his months-long legal efforts to keep his financial documents secret.

Three judges of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 to endorse a subpoena issued April 15 by Democrat-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Reform requesting that Mazars USA, Trump's accounting firm, provide eight years of the president's financial records between 2011 and 2018.

"Contrary to the president's arguments, the Committee possesses authority under both the House rules and the Constitution to issue the subpoena, and Mazars must comply," Judge David Tatel and Judge Patricia Millett wrote in a 66-page opinion Friday.

Tatel and Millett were both appointed by Democratic presidents while Neomi Rao, the judge who dissented the ruling, is a Trump appointee.

Rao, for her part, argued that in order to carry out an investigation into the president, the House will have to invoke constitutional impeachment powers, instead of resorting to regular oversight capacities.

"Throughout our history, Congress, the President, and the courts have insisted upon maintaining the separation between the legislative and impeachment powers of the House and recognized the gravity and accountability that follow impeachment," Rao said in her dissent. "Allowing the Committee to issue this subpoena for legislative purposes would turn Congress into a roving inquisition over a co-equal branch of government."