Get Fully Briefed with Yahoo Finance, delivered straight to your inbox.
The New York attorney general's lawsuit against Donald Trump last week revealed new details about the former president's finances, but a Congressional probe could soon unveil additional documents that he's long been trying to shield from public view.
The accounting firm Mazars Group, which handled Trump’s account for decades, has handed over some of its documents to both Congress and the New York attorney general's office, potentially providing new revelations after six years of delay.
The documents from 2014-2018, which Mazars is providing to comply with a legal settlement, could shed light on potential conflicts of interest. More specifically, the documents might provide evidence of possible violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which bars federal elected officials from receiving money or gifts from foreign governments.
But two key questions loom. How much insight will these records provide? And is it too late to hold Trump accountable for conflicts when he was in office now that he's no longer president?
“All we get to see in the disclosure forms is the fact that the government official owns an interest in or controls this particular entity and then the entity's a black box,” says Richard Painter, who worked in the George W. Bush White House and sued to get these documents in 2017.
‘These records are only going to give you snapshots’
Aside from the possible opacity of the documents, Congressional investigators have to confront the reality that the Trump Organization might have given its accounting firm incorrect information.
“These records are only going to give you snapshots,” says Noah Bookbinder, president of the good-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. For example, he added, "If Saudi Arabia spends money at a Trump property, does that show up in bank records? It could under certain circumstances, but in a lot of cases it won't.”
In her court filing last week, New York Attorney General Letitia James also claimed that Trump and others "engaged in conduct intended to mislead Mazars in connection with its work compiling” their financial records. Mazars itself, in a letter disclosed earlier this year, said that it couldn’t vouch for the documents.
Still, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, the oversight committee chair, has suggested the documents could contain useful evidence against the former president.
“These documents will inform the Committee’s efforts to get to the bottom of former President Trump’s egregious conduct and ensure that future presidents do not abuse their position of power for personal gain,” she said in a statement in September after the committee won access to Trump’s records.
The other issue hanging over this case is whether the documents have value now that Trump is out of the White House — especially given that the Emoluments Clause relates to elected officials.
By reaching the end of his term, Trump might have avoided most of his exposure to Emoluments violations even as many said his situation — with a Trump hotel hosting foreign delegations and his 2019 attempt to bring world leaders to his private Miami resort — constituted a blatant violation of the rules.
But the documents could still contain new surprises.
“A lot of times with financial records … you just don't really know what kind of thing could be in there until they're in front of you,” Bookbinder notes.
For example, he noted that the records could contain evidence of crimes, which he notes for Trump "is far from out of the question.”
For her part, the New York attorney general says she'll make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service based on her civil investigation’s findings — though it’s unclear if the referrals are based on the Mazars documents.
Perhaps the most likely consequence of the documents could be a renewed push to reform the rules regarding presidential financial disclosure. These rule changes would affect for future presidents, including Trump himself, if he runs and wins again.
Painter, the lawyer who worked for the George W. Bush White House, notes that documents could spur Congress into action in the years ahead. “They could be doing all of their business with the Chase Manhattan Bank, or they could be doing their business with Deutsche Bank, or they could be doing their business with a bank in Russia,” he says of Trump’s activities. “You don't know.”
He's pushing to close what he calls a loophole that flags foreign money if it goes straight to an officeholder, but not if it goes to an entity controlled by that same officeholder.
Investigators on Capitol Hill meanwhile are also up against a possible end of the year deadline with Republicans expected to take control of the House of Representatives in November.
“I think it is important for this committee to move as quickly as possible,” Bookbinder says. “Whether that is a hearing, whether that is a report or some combination thereof, or just releasing parts of it to the public.”
In a statement to Yahoo Finance, Mazars declined to offer any further information about the documents and its relationship with the Trump organization, but said it's committed to fulfilling its professional and legal obligations. Likewise, the House Oversight Committee declined to comment on how many documents had been received and whether they would ever be revealed to the public.
For his part, Trump has repeatedly dismissed probes from James and others as a political "witch hunt."
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit.
The U.S. government has imposed sanctions on a Bosnian state prosecutor who is accused of being complicit in corruption and undermining democratic processes or institutions in the Western Balkans
Iran has entered its 10th day of nationwide protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody. Amini had been detained by morality police on Sept. 13 for allegedly violating a religious law that decrees that a woman should wear a headscarf. She died three days later.
Biden was oldest-ever president when he took office in 2021
On Monday, a gunman opened fire in a school in central Russia, killing at least 15 people and wounding 24 others before shooting himself dead, authorities said. Russian authorities identified the gunman as a 34-year-old graduate of the school.
The book from The New York Times’s premier profiler of Trump is set to come out next week
The majority of the G20 failed to submit new or strengthened plans to cut emissions to the UN by September deadline
Millions of Aussies have cancelled or downgraded their health insurance policies as premiums rise. Find out how you can save.
Wall Street's main indexes have all tumbled to close well down as rattled investors continued to reposition themselves amid fears the US Federal Reserve's hawkish rate policy will help tip the country's economy into recession.The Dow narrowly avoided ending more than 20 per cent lower than its January 4 record all-time closing peak of 36,799.
Only serious buyers will be allowed to view the Sydney mansion with a deposit of $10,000 needed just to step inside. Here’s a sneak preview.
It’s a volatile time in the markets and the cost of living is weighing heavily on Aussie households. So you may be surprised to know where these Aussies are investing their hard earned money.
What would have been Australia's biggest business deal of the year is officially dead, after being on shaky ground for awhile.A consortium led by US private equity group Kohlberg Kravis Roberts had offered $20 billion for Ramsay Health Care, Australia's largest private hospital chain.
Hackers are threatening to release the private details of 10,000 customers a day until they are paid a $1.5 million ransom. See the latest developments.
The Government is working towards scrapping the controversial cashless welfare card scheme with 17,000 set to be impacted by the changes. This is what you need to know.
While some people view renting as paying off someone else's mortgage, in these suburbs you’d actually be better off not to own. Check out these 30 suburbs.
Close to 1 million Aussies have gone back to the nest in the last 12 months to help save money as the cost of living proves too high for young people. Here’s what they’re saving for.
The local market is expected to take another blow this morning after Wall Street fell even further on its Friday session. This is your Monday morning wrap.
In a surprise announcement national carrier Qantas has been ranked as the fifth best airline in the world in this year’s Skytrax World Airline Awards.
Wall Street's main indexes have risen for the first time in six sessions, with megacap growth stocks doing most of the heavy lifting following a bruising sell-off on worries of a rate-hike induced economic slowdown.Rate-sensitive shares including Amazon.
An Aussie worker has taken to TikTok to share how much money she made in a week doing this job which people have called ‘easy’. Find out more.
Wall Street has slid deeper into a bear market, with the S&P; 500 and Dow closing lower as investors fretted that the Federal Reserve's aggressive campaign against inflation could throw the US economy into a sharp downturn.After two weeks of mostly steady losses on the US stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average confirmed it has been in a bear market since early January.