The Russian collusion narrative is now a total bust for Democrats in their never-ending attacks on President Trump.  Now Democrats have turned to using admitted liar Michael Cohen, not to go after President Trump directly, but the banks and accounting firms he used long before he was President.   

Highly partisan Democrat Elijah Cummings is overstepping his authority as Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform to go after President Trump.  As Politico reports on Cummings' attempts to obtain confidential information from one accounting firm:

Cummings told the firm that it was seeking the documents to corroborate the testimony of Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney and fixer, who alleged that Trump artificially inflated and deflated the value of his assets for his personal benefit.

Ranking Republican Member Jim Jordan explains what is really going on:

Chairman Cummings’s announcement of a subpoena to a private company to pry into the President’s personal finances is an astonishing abuse of this Committee’s authority and a disgraceful departure from the fair and legitimate oversight he promised to the American people just 73 days ago. This unprecedented action is based solely on the testimony of Michael Cohen, a convicted liar. It is now clear why Chairman Cummings refuses to keep his promise to hold Cohen accountable for his lies before our Committee: Chairman Cummings will not let the truth get in the way of his obsession with attacking the President and the First Family. 

While Cummings actions are a political stunt, it has potential serious consequences.  Cummings requests are not to oversee the executive branch but rather focusing on information and events that occurred years before President Trump was even a candidate.  This has never been the job of Congress.  President Trump’s lawyers William S. Consovoy and Stefan Passantino are quoted in Politico as writing:

“The House Oversight Committee is not a miniature Department of Justice, charged with investigating and prosecuting potential federal crimes. It is a legislative body, not ‘a law enforcement or trial agency,’ and the chairman’s attempt to assume for Congress the role of police, prosecutor, and judge is unconstitutional,” they wrote.

The last word comes from Rep. Jordan  in a letter he wrote today to Chairman Cummings citing the relevant Supreme Court principle:

“The Supreme Court of the United States has explained that a congressional investigation cannot seek to “expose for the sake of exposure.”  The Court explained that “the public is, of course, entitled to be informed concerning workings of its government. It cannot be inflated into a general power to expose where the predominant result can only be an invasion of the private right of an individual.”  I am disappointed that your obsession with attacking President Trump for political gain has led you to do precisely what the Supreme Court cautioned against.”