Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump appeared to be heading toward a loss in his courtroom attempt to stave off the release of his personal financial records to congressional investigators as two of three judges on an appeals panel hearing the case Friday resisted arguments that a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee to the President's longtime accounting firm was unlawful.

Over more than two hours of debate in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Judges David Tatel and Patricia Millett expressed skepticism of claims by a personal lawyer for the President that the subpoena, which seeks a vast amount of communications and documents related to work done by Mazars, the accounting firm, for Trump and his businesses, did not have a proper legislative purpose.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the committee chairman who issued the subpoena earlier this year, has said that the financial records are necessary to assess Trump's compliance with ethics regulations and to inform lawmakers on proposed legislation, and in the hearing Friday, Tatel referenced a number of relevant bills that Congress has already considered this term.

"These bills have passed the House and they are directly related to the subject of the subpoena. Do we just ignore those?" Tatel, a Clinton appointee, said, referring to HR 1, a sweeping ethics reform package that passed the House along party lines in March.

A DC district court judge, Amit Mehta, sided with the House in the Mazars case in a May ruling that cited Watergate and other historical moments that, he wrote, show "that congressionally-exposed criminal conduct by the president or a high-ranking Executive Branch official can lead to legislation."

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