US Supreme Court paves way for NY prosecutor to view Donald Trump taxes

The Supreme Court rejected the President claim of immunity from subpoenas to hand over his financial records to New York prosecutors.

US President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday. Picture: AFP

The Supreme Court paved the way for a New York prosecutor to enforce a subpoena for President Trump’s financial and tax records, but issued a mixed decision in a related case involving subpoenas from Congress.

The decisions — both on 7-2 votes — send the cases back to lower courts, where Mr Trump can raise additional objections to the subpoenas. The rulings put off, likely until after the November election, the attempts to explore Mr Trump’s finances.

In the New York case, the court rejected Mr Trump’s overarching claim that as president, he enjoys absolute immunity from the disclosure of information sought by prosecutors.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. had issued a subpoena to Mr Trump’s accounting firm, seeking years of Trump financial documents and tax records as part of a criminal investigation into hush-money payments to women who claim to have had affairs with Mr Trump.

In the congressional case, the high court said the lower courts were too quick to side with three House committees seeking records from the president’s accountants and bankers, rebuffing House arguments about the scope of its subpoena power and finding that it failed to recognise the prerogatives of the executive branch. The court laid out its own criteria for considering congressional subpoenas involving the president — and sent the case back to lower courts for further review.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote opinions in both cases. The court’s liberal members and both of Mr Trump’s appointees were in the majority. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

“This is all a political prosecution,” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter. “I won the Mueller Witch Hunt, and others, and now I have to keep fighting in a politically corrupt New York. Not fair to this Presidency or Administration!” The president added in a separate tweet that he felt he was not being treated fairly. “Courts in the past have given “broad deference”. BUT NOT ME!” he wrote.

The Supreme Court sends case back to Lower Court, arguments to continue. This is all a political prosecution. I won the Mueller Witch Hunt, and others, and now I have to keep fighting in a politically corrupt New York. Not fair to this Presidency or Administration!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020

But Mr Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, had a very different reaction to the news. “We are pleased that in the decisions issued today, the Supreme Court has temporarily blocked both Congress and New York prosecutors from obtaining the President’s financial records,” he said in a statement. “We will now proceed to raise additional Constitutional and legal issues in the lower courts.” Mr Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, said: “This is a tremendous victory for our nation’s system of justice and its founding principle that no one — not even a president — is above the law.”

His statement further said, “Our investigation, which was delayed for almost a year by this lawsuit, will resume, guided as always by the grand jury’s solemn obligation to follow the law and the facts, wherever they may lead.” The House Oversight Committee, investigating ethics issues in the executive branch, issued a subpoena to accounting firm Mazars USA LLP for eight years of financial records related to Mr. Trump, his real-estate company, his foundation and other entities belonging to the president.

A pair of other House committees — the Financial Services and Intelligence Committees — issued subpoenas seeking a range of Trump records from Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp.

Deutsche Bank since 1998 has led or participated in loans of at least $US2.5 billion to companies affiliated with Mr Trump.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said after the rulings that the House would continue its press in lower courts to obtain Mr Trump’s financial records as part of its oversight of the executive branch.

“The path that the Supreme Court has laid out is one that is clearly achievable by us in the lower court and we will continue to go down that path,” she said.

On Twitter, former Vice President Joe Biden, the president’s presumptive Democratic challenger, pointed to an October 2019 video of him calling on Mr Trump to ” release your tax returns or shut up.”

The president has been fighting the release of his tax and financial documents since his presidential campaign, when he became the first presidential candidate in four decades not to release his tax returns.

During the campaign, Mr Trump promised to release his tax returns following the completion of an audit, but he never followed through on that promise. Polls show the majority of the public believe he should release his tax returns.

Mr Trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, wrote in a memoir set to be released next week — a copy of which was reviewed by the Journal — that she leaked critical financial documents about the Trump family to the New York Times in 2017 in an effort to damage the president.

The Intelligence Committee said it needed the information as part of its probe of foreign influence in the U.S. political process, including whether foreigners have financial leverage over the Trump family and its enterprises. The Financial Services Committee is investigating bank-lending practices, including to Mr Trump and his businesses.

Mr Trump filed suit to stop the accountants and bankers from turning over the records. He argued that House committees infringed on his prerogatives as chief executive, and that the Constitution prohibits state prosecutors from subpoenaing records of a sitting president.

In 1974, the Supreme Court required President Nixon to obey a subpoena for tapes and other records related to the Watergate investigation. In 1997, the court likewise ordered President Clinton to comply with a private lawsuit brought against him over sexual harassment allegations.

House investigators and state prosecutors argued that the burdens on Mr Trump were minor compared with those cases, as the subpoenas were directed to third parties and the president need do nothing in response.

Lower courts upheld the subpoenas for the Trump records, but they have been blocked during the Supreme Court appeal.

The Wall Street Journal