Vox Sentences: One step closer to Trump’s financial records

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A federal judge rules that Trump’s accounting firm must hand over the president’s financial records to Congress; Hungary’s anti-immigration government is accused of migrant abuse.

Court sides with Democrats on Trump’s financial records

A federal judge has ruled that President Trump’s accounting firm must hand over his financial records to Congress — but the president doesn’t plan on backing down easily. [CNN / Katelyn Polantz]
The legal battle began when House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Elijah Cummings subpoenaed 10 years’ worth of Trump’s financial records from his accounting firm Mazars USA in April. The subpoena was a response to the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, that stated Trump misrepresented his net worth when he was a private citizen. [Politico / Andrew Desiderio]
Democrats said they subpoenaed the records to see if foreigners have hidden influence over American policymaking based on their business dealings with the president. They said this will help them determine whether they need to improve ethics and disclosure laws. [NYT / Charlie Savage]
Trump’s legal team, on the other hand, said that Democrats had no legitimate legislative reason to view the records and denounced their subpoena as politically motivated. [NBC News / Dareh Gregorian]
US District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled in Democrats’ favor because congressional oversight into presidential misconduct can lead to substantive discoveries. There is also strong precedent of courts respecting Congress’s investigative power, Mehta wrote. [Vox / Jen Kirby and Ella Nilsen]
But the legal battle over Trump’s financial records is far from over. Trump’s legal team has swiftly filed an appeal and denounced the ruling for being made by an Obama-appointed judge. [Washington Post / Spencer S. Hsu]
The administration is running out of time, though. Mehta denied their request to delay the effectiveness of his order to buy more time for an appeal. Mazars must now comply with Democrats’ subpoena in seven days, and the Trump administration will have to act — fast. [USA Today / Bart Jansen and Richard Wolf]

Hungary is accused of abusing asylum seekers

A European human rights group has accused the government’s anti-immigrant rhetoric of fueling migrant abuse. [NYT / Marc Santora and Benjamin Novak]
The claim is brought forward by the human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, which is made up of 47 countries and is not related to the European Union. Far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his nationalist, anti-immigration Fidesz party have clashed with other human rights groups in the past. [BBC]
Following the government’s announcement of a “crisis situation due to mass immigration,” asylum seekers have been held in two transit zones on the Serbian border. Within the system, asylum seekers are denied food and legal representation, according to Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatović. [Politico EU / Galaxy Henry]
Mijatović called for Hungary to lift the “crisis situation” laws because they cannot be justified when the country only accepted 671 asylum applications in 2018. [Guardian / Jennifer Rankin]
Hungary’s government rejected the criticism and justified its “crisis situation” because many immigrants are present in nearby countries like Serbia and North Macedonia. The government also denied claims of police abuse. [AP / Pablo Gorondi]
The group’s report also stated that the government is restricting gender equality, judicial independence, and civil rights. [Hungary Today]
Despite continued criticism from human rights groups, Hungary isn’t budging — especially when people like President Trump have praised his record on immigration. [Newsweek / Cristina Maza]

Miscellaneous

New Coke, the reimagined formula that Coca-Cola tried (and failed) to launch in the ’80s, is coming back to shelves thanks to Netflix’s Stranger Things. [CNN / Danielle Wiener-Bronner]
Caution: a 10-foot-long great white shark has been spotted off the shore of Connecticut for the first time ever. [USA Today / N’dea Yancey-Bragg]
The children’s show Arthur featured its first same-sex marriage in a groundbreaking episode. Alabama Public Television chose not to air it. [AL.com / Abbey Crain]
Pissaladière: an open-faced pastry topped with olives. Also a misspelled word in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. [NYT / Laura M. Holson]
Pseudoscience Facebook groups tell parents that drinking bleach will cure their children’s autism. Now moms are infiltrating these groups in hope of stopping the misinformation. [NBC News / Brandy Zadrozny]

Verbatim

“Congress must have access to the information we need to do our job effectively and efficiently, and we urge the President to stop engaging in this unprecedented cover-up and start complying with the law.” [Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on the court’s ruling that upheld Democrats’ subpoena of President Trump’s financial records]