Donald Trump's Fight to Hide His Tax Returns Has Failed

[Nevilledog]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/donald-trump-john-roberts-tax-returns-vance.html

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero threw out President Donald Trump’s challenge to a subpoena seeking his tax returns, a decision that all but guarantees a New York grand jury access to these documents in the near future. Trump will fight Thursday’s order, but he has run out of options: The Supreme Court already rejected his sweeping claims on immunity, then gave Marrero a road map that led ineluctably to a decision against the president. And soon, at long last, New York prosecutors will obtain the tax returns that he has fought so long to conceal.

New York County District Attorney Cy Vance reportedly began investigating Trump in 2018 for the illegal hush money payments that Michael Cohen made on his behalf. Since then, prosecutors have indicated that they are also looking into bank and insurance fraud by Trump and his companies. In 2019, a New York grand jury subpoenaed Mazars, Trump’s shadowy accounting firm, for eight years of financial records from both Trump and his businesses, including tax returns. The president, aided by the Department of Justice, intervened to quash the subpoena. Trump’s lawyers argued that sitting presidents are absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas. Alternatively, they insisted that prosecutors should have to show a “heightened need” when subpoenaing the president, demonstrating that their action is a “last resort” to obtain information “not available from any other source.”

Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion for SCOTUS, issued in July, rejected both these arguments. Roberts explained that nothing in the Constitution compels state prosecutors to show a “heightened need” for a subpoena of the president. Nor do the president’s constitutional powers shield him from a subpoena while in office. To the contrary, historical practice confirms that “the public has a right to every man’s evidence.” However, Roberts noted, a president may challenge a subpoena that is issued in bad faith if he can show it was designed to harass him. He can also defeat a subpoena by showing that it will impede his constitutional duties. The chief justice then sent the case back down to the lower courts, giving Trump an opportunity to raise these final objections.

Roberts’ decision was diplomatic: It confirmed that no one is above the law without immediately forcing Trump to comply with the law. But it was also a time bomb, because the chief justice surely knew that none of those objections had any merit in this case. The bomb went off on Thursday. Trump’s lawyers argued that Vance was engaged in a yearslong campaign of harassment against the president, a “fishing expedition” with illicit partisan motives. But they provided no credible evidence to back up their claims. As Marrero wrote:

This Court cannot mechanically credit allegations that a particular application of judicial process to the President is necessarily unduly burdensome and motivated by bad faith if, upon thorough and independent review, it fairly and compellingly appears that the claimed imposition on the President lacks plausible basis. … Given force, the relief the President seeks … would essentially extend the application of presidential immunity simply by virtue of a mere invocation that it is, after all, the President whose petition to be shielded from judicial process the Court is evaluating.

*snip*

[soothsayer]

1. So what happens now?

[secondwind]

2. I read here on DU yesterday that there was "a stay".... but don't know more than that.

[getagrip_already]

3. they file another appeal on different grounds to a higher court .... until it gets back to scotus

Then scotus takes weeks or months to decide to review it.

Just like every other court decision that goes against them.

[FBaggins]

4. Unfortunately... the answer is "hardly"

His "fight" is to keep whatever is in there from the public eye until after the election. That's virtually guaranteed at this point. Even if we assume losses at the appellate and SCOTUS levels... that's a process that necessarily takes some time. It's highly unlikely that Vance receives the tax returns prior to the election... let alone long enough beforehand that some aspect of them could be made public.

[lagomorph777]

5. That's OK - revenge is best served cold.

The public has plenty of reasons to fire Trump right now. Firing him, and then watching him spend the rest of his days in courtrooms and jail cells, will be delightful.