Senior Democrat Waters hits back after Republicans warn of consequences if she tries to investigate Trump

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

Amid Republicans’ warnings about targeting the president, Maxine Waters said the new Democrat-controlled US House looking into Donald Trump’s finances should be considered “ordinary”.

Ms Waters is likely to be the chair of the House Financial Services Committee in the next Congress, giving her oversight power of the banking industry and the ability conduct investigations into Mr Trump’s dealings with Deutsche Bank in particular.

House Republican Patrick McHenry, who is set to be the ranking Republican on the committee, said if Ms Waters goes after Mr Trump’s personal finances he would stop her, warning Democrats they cannot use the committee “as the launch pad for endless, partisan investigations”.

She told The Hill newspaper: “Deutsche Bank is key to understanding the relationship between the president and members of the president’s family and money laundering and all of that. We hope that we can move forward in a responsible way.”

Deutsche Bank has had to pay penalties imposed by the Department of Commerce for laundering money from Russia.

Ms Waters and other Democrats have repeatedly requested documents from Deutsche Bank and the Treasury Department regarding Mr Trump and his family’s personal financial records because they think it could prove the president has deeper ties to Russia.

Thus far the requests have been rebuffed but once Ms Waters becomes chair of the committee, she would have the power to subpoena the records.

Mr Trump has said if Democrats do pursue this investigation, he would refuse to cooperate on crucial matters like infrastructure funding.

This includes his tax returns, which Mr Trump has also refused to have reviewed repeatedly saying he cannot because he is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

He went as far as saying should Democrats use that subpoena for his tax records, he would have them investigated.

“There’s ample justification” for the Ways and Means Committee to go after Mr Trump’s personal and business tax returns, Texas Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett has said. He added: “We need to act on this promptly.”

Mr Trump has all but dared the new Congress to try to impeach him, saying he would adopt a “warlike posture” against any new investigations.

He added: “They can play that game, but we can play it better because we have a thing called the United States Senate...I could see it being extremely good for me politically because I think I’m better at that game than they are, actually, but we’ll find out.”

Ms Waters, though, maintained nothing the new committee will do should be considered outside the course of normal operations.

“We don’t want that determined as investigation so that we create the kind of retaliation the president is talking about. We think it is improper for anybody to be talking about retaliation,” she said of Mr Trump’s threat of non-cooperation.

Ms Waters and other House Democrats will likely have to play it cool on her previous calls for impeachment and even the investigations in order to make deals with the Republican-controlled Senate.

Leader Nancy Pelosi said told PBS Newshour: “For those who want impeachment, that’s not what our caucus is about.”

Ms Pelosi added that she will wait for the outcome of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s federal investigation into the election meddling and possible collusion before deciding what move to make. She noted that a call for impeachment “would have to be bipartisan, and the evidence would have to be so conclusive”.

And, Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings CNN that although Democrats were eager to get to work, he did not want to give voters the impression the new House would “rush in and beat up on Trump”.