Trump’s tax returns, financials can be subpoenaed by investigators, Supreme Court rules
President Donald Trump can be required to hand over his tax returns to New York investigators, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The Supreme Court delivered different rulings on two cases related to the president’s financial records Thursday, ruling he is not “absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas” in one of the decisions.
The court sent a separate case over Congressional demands for the president’s financial records back to a lower court, blocking Democrats from getting Trump’s banking records as the presidential election approaches.
The Supreme Court’s long-awaited decisions on the two cases came on its final opinion day.
What were the two cases about?
The first case determined whether the U.S. House of Representatives can review Trump’s financial and banking records. The second case is whether New York investigators can subpoena a sitting president’s tax returns.
The court ruled the president can be subpoenaed to turn over his tax returns in the New York investigation but sent the case back to a lower court.
The president argued that he is immune from any criminal investigations while in office, which the Supreme Court disputed.
In the other case, House Democrats wanted to see the president’s financial records as part of an investigation into whether Trump paid hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. They are also looking into whether the president lied about the value of assets to reduce his taxes and get loans.
The justices sent that case back to the lower courts, too, blocking Democrats from getting those records for now and giving Trump a win to keep that information private in the months before the election.
The subpoena in the New York criminal case is also related to possible hush-money payments to the porn actress who said she had an affair with Trump. The president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and other charges related to the investigation.
What did SCOTUS and Trump say about the decision?
In the ruling on the New York case, Chief Justice John Roberts writes, “Two hundred years ago, a great jurist of our Court established that no citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding.”
“We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” the court decided in the 7-2 ruling.
Even with the ruling against Trump in the New York case, much of the material may not become public, the Associated Press reports. The tax returns in the New York case would go to a grand jury with strict confidentiality rules.
Trump has made his case against releasing the documents, but lower courts have consistently ruled against the president, according to the AP.
For the investigation in the Democratic-controlled House, committee members want the records to see if the president borrowed money from anyone in Russia or did business in the country, NBC News reports.
Questions about possible Russian business connections from before Trump became president were never answered in an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to NBC.
Sending the question back to the lower court with a 7-2 ruling, Roberts writes, “Congressional subpoenas for information from the President, however, implicate special concerns regarding the separation of powers. The courts below did not take adequate account of those concerns.”
This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 10:25 AM.
