Trump's lawyers to defy congressional requests for documents

Lawyers for President Donald Trump look poised to defy Congressional requests for documents, thus setting up a major fight in the courts.

The Daily Beast reports that Trump's legal team is "telling a crucial House committee seeking documents from dozens of Trumpworld associates that it has nothing to turn over," thus defying a Monday deadline set by Congress to comply with document requests.

According to one source, the Trump legal team is using a somewhat strange legal rationale for refusing to cooperate as laid out by a letter it sent to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).

"The brief letter, sent by Trump attorney Jane Raskin, lays out that Jay Sekulow -- the Trump lawyer who received the documents request early this month -- and the current team never turned anything over to Mueller’s office or the Southern District," the publication reports. "Hence, the source said, when Nadler asked Trump’s outside counsel for such documents, the attorneys’ position is that the House Democrat was asking for something that didn’t exist."

It's not clear at this point whether the committee plans to respond to this by issuing a formal subpoena, or whether any other Trump allies plan on defying Congress's requests.