WASHINGTON—A group of House Democrats on Thursday filed a lawsuit seeking to force the Trump administration to release records from President Donald Trump’s signature Washington, D.C., hotel.

The suit, based on a 1928 statute that enables any seven members of the House Oversight Committee to seek documents from the executive branch, was signed by Democrats on the panel, which is charged with investigating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.

It seeks a wide range of documents from the Trump International Hotel located in downtown Washington in the Old Post Office building, a facility leased to Mr. Trump’s company by the federal agency that manages government real estate holdings. The documents sought include hotel profit and expense statements and correspondence within the Trump administration about the hotel.

Since Mr. Trump was inaugurated in January, his critics have questioned the validity of the lease, citing a provision in it that appears to bar officeholders from profiting from a government contract. The U.S. General Services Administration has upheld the lease, ruling that Mr. Trump has sufficiently distanced himself from his business interests.

In the new lawsuit, 17 House Democrats cite the 1928 “Seven Member Rule,” a law that enables any seven members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to request and receive documents from the federal government.


Typically, document requests from Congress are negotiated between the executive branch and Congress. Congress also can subpoena records from the administration, but that usually requires members of the majority party to sign off. House Democrats, who are in the minority, are looking to circumvent those limitations with a new suit.

Spokespersons for the White House and the GSA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Federal courts customarily try to avoid intervening in political disputes between branches of government, and have been skeptical about House members’ ability to sue the federal government in their individual capacity, preferring litigation authorized by one or both chambers of Congress.

A 1983 decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit held that “when constitutional disputes arise concerning the respective powers of the legislative and executive branches, judicial intervention should be delayed until all possibilities for settlement have been exhausted.”


In a 2006 lawsuit based on the Seven Member Rule, a California federal district court ruled House members had no standing to sue.

But at least one court has ruled the Seven Member Rule is binding and ordered a federal agency to turn over documents to members of Congress. In a 2002 case, a federal judge in California ordered the Secretary of Commerce to provide census data to Democrats on the Oversight committee.

The provision in question in the Trump Organization’s lease with the General Services Administration states that no “elected official of the Government of the United States... shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.”

The GSA determined in March that the hotel wasn’t in violation of the lease terms, finding that Mr. Trump had sufficiently stepped away from his business empire and that there would be no monetary distributions from the hotel that would benefit Mr. Trump during the duration of his presidency.


The Trump International Hotel generated about $18 million in revenue in the first four months of 2017, in part by charging room rates that were as much as 60% higher than their budgeted prices, according to documents released by the GSA in August.

Write to Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com