The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday lined up against House Democrats in their pursuit of financial records from President Donald Trump’s accounting firm Mazars USA, contending lawmakers had only presented a “scattershot” of legislative interest in the documents.

The government argued in a friend-of-the-court brief in a Washington federal appeals court that House Democrats had not “clearly” stated why they need or want the records. The subpoena was issued in April by the House Oversight Committee, which asserted that is has “full authority to investigate whether the president may have engaged in illegal conduct before and his tenure in office.”