Supreme Court: Mixed rulings on grand jury and congressional subpoenas for Trump tax and financial records
Two political wins for Trump: Grand Jury case sent back to lower courts where Trump can raise other objections, and for now his accountants do not have to produce financial records to Democrats in Congress.
The Supreme Court has ruled in two cases whether Trump’s financial records and tax returns are subject to subpoena.
The two cases involving financial records sought by Democrats in Congress, which were consolidated, are Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG and Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP.
Issue: Whether the Committee on Financial Services and the Intelligence Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives have the constitutional and statutory authority to issue a subpoena to creditors for President Donald Trump and several of his business entities demanding private financial records belonging to the president.
The third case, involving a New York grand jury subpoena obtained by the Democratic District Attorney in Manhattan for Trump’s tax returns is Trump v. Vance.
Issue: Whether a grand-jury subpoena served on a custodian of the president’s personal records, demanding production of nearly 10 years’ worth of the president’s financial papers and his tax returns, violates Article II and the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
The Opinions have been issued. Mazars is here. Vance is here.
In Vance, the court ruled 7-2 in an opinion by Roberts, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch concurring in the judgment, with Alito and Thomas dissenting. The Court rejected Trump’s “absolute immunity” or “heightened need” claim, but left open that there may be other objections Trump can raise in the lower courts:
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 “guard[] furnished to this high officer” lies where it always has—in “the conduct of a court” applying established legal and constitutional principles to individual subpoenas in a manner that preserves both the independence of the Executive and the integrity of the criminal justice system. Burr, 25 F. Cas., at 34.
The arguments presented here and in the Court of Appeals were limited to absolute immunity and heightened need. The Court of Appeals, however, has directed that the case be returned to the District Court, where the President may raise further arguments as appropriate.
Vance is a backhanded political win for Trump, since there will be more litigation and possibly a return trip to the Supreme Court. His goal is to drag things out so it doesn’t affect the election. But it now leaves Trump open to innumerable additional investigations by politically motivated prosecutors.
In Mazars, Trump have more of a win. Another Roberts decision, with Thomas and Alito dissenting. The court overruled the enforcement of the congressional subpoenas, holding the lower courts did not adequately take into account separation of powers:
When Congress seeks information “needed for intelligent legislative action,” it “unquestionably” remains “the duty of all citizens to cooperate.” Watkins, 354 U. S., at 187 (emphasis added). 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. The judgments of the Courts of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit and the Second Circuit are vacated, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
This is another political win for Trump, as his accountants do not have to produce anything to the congressional Democrats — for now.
UPDATE
I discussed the decisions on The Tony Katz Show.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Yet the same idiots (Hannity, Limbaugh, etal) who keep arguing that it would be crazy to establish a precedent of issuing subpoena to the Clintons and Obamas would be a historical mistake will stick with that argument.
And yesterday, AG Barr squished his way into “black lives matter”.
Very, very hard to “feel the love” for our side. It’s Trump and us vs the world.
Perhaps true, but the gutless, corrupt Republican Senators and Congressmen wouldn’t do anything anyway. They won’t even hammer the criminal underlings participating in an actual coup against the President. When Clinton was impeached, the RINO Senators didn’t even want to look at the documents. To paraphrase Robert Bork, Slouching to Venezuela.
I want to see Joe Biden’s, Nancy Pelosi’s, Chuck U. Schumer’s,…etc next. 🙂
I might be mistaken, but I believe Biden has released 21 years worth of tax returns. This doesn’t make me want to vote for him, but I believe it’s a fact.
Whether those tax returns are copies of his actual tax returns, and not some sanitized fiction, is another matter entirely.
Another Roberts punt in the New York State Grand Jury case. Roberts laid out a road map for a new appeal. Given that Vance will not be getting tax returns any time soon.
In addition, a President can raise subpoena-specific constitutional challenges in either a state or a federal forum. As noted above, he can challenge the subpoena as an attempt to influence the performance of his official duties, in violation of the Supremacy Clause. And he can argue that compliance with a particular subpoena would impede his constitutional duties
The other major ruling today will have a bigger impact ..
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the eastern half of Oklahoma can be considered Native American territory.
so is OK now have the size? What happens to the residents?
More casinos?
Unless OK votes to end the lottery there, which is what I would suggest they do. That would shut down the casinos immediately.
Oh, make no mistake. The NYT and Washington Post will have copies by tomorrow afternoon. Assuming they don’t already.
Prosecute any leaks of the tax records to the full extent of the law
with Barr as AG? Surely you jest!
These people hate us and Trump. They have no love of country, or order, and peace.
For a subpoena issued by a State against a President, there should be a mandatory condition precedent of the State proving actual probable cause of a crime committed by the President before the subpoena can be enforced. You can’t have fifty State investigatory grand juries snooping for no good reason against a President, for obvious reasons.
and this excellent point was missed by the brains of scotus
Democrats may come to rue this if Biden is elected. There’ll still be some Republican attorneys general, and Biden has almost five decades in public office and a couple of family members (at least) with noisy skeletons in their closets. Subpoenas will be flying on the slightest pretext.
Then why aren’t they doing it now, before he’s president? If they really think there’s a there there, surely now is the time to discover it, not after the damage has been done.
The person you really want to subpoena isn’t even known yet. Joe will be retired before anybody can serve him.
If he was who he wants us to believe he is, this would have been a non-issue when he “drained the swamp” and lead through transparency to change the corruption of our system, and posted his tax returns on his little tweeter page to prove he’s not just as corrupt as all the rest. But maybe we should just ignore that…
“Lead by example”? Having witnessed over three years of false accusations about Trump by Dems who hid the truth and 8 years of Obama hiding his past academic history and shady political dealings…one would be reticent to give the Dems more information to twist. You are projecting and it shows.
If he never intended to release his tax returns, he shouldn’t have promised to do it.
I thought the promise was to release his taxes after Hillary Rodham Clinton released her 33-thousand emails. Which she can’t do, as some of them were classified. Those being classified didn’t stop her from sending them all to China. Or she has destroyed them, as they were incriminating evidence. (Don’t try that trick at home.)
Every email on Hillary’s server was forwarded to the Chinese.
He still plans on releasing them, just as soon as he has a Wall to post them on.
A couple of things here.
First, when Trump was running for President, he was a naive neophyte. When he pledged to drain the swamp, he, like most people in this country, thought that federal corruption was limited to a few highly placed persons in DC. As we have since learned, exactly the opposite is true. Almost everyone in DC is corrupt and there are only a few honest people there. Corruption is systemic in federal politics and the federal bureaucracy. And, once in office, Trump found that he had no allies in the political or bureaucratic class there. One man can not defeat an army. And as Julius Caesar found out, when you threaten the political class, even your “friends” will stab you in the back.
Second, business tax returns are not like personal tax returns. Where most personal tax returns only list sources of direct income, business tax returns often have to include business affiliations which generate income. In this case, the State of New York wants not only personal tax returns, but business tax returns, as well as almost all corporate documents going back 10 years. Why is unclear. No reason has been given for the necessity of examining all of these documents. It appears to be nothing more than a huge fishing expedition. Would you wish to have to produce every financial document you had contact with for the last decade?
Unlike Barack Obama [aka Barry Soetoro], whose vague past raised the very real possibility that he was not Constitutionally qualified for the Office of the President of the United States of America, there is no evidence that Trump has done anything which would preclude him from holding that office. And, the courts held that Obama did not have to prove that he was Constitutionally qualified for the Office, simply because he was elected to it. In Obama’s case, all he had to do was to immediately produce a long form certificate of live birth from the state of Hawaii [Something almost every citizen of the US does several times in their lifetime]. He refused and the state made it impossible for anyone else to obtain one. Finally, the White House released one which appeared to be an obvious forgery. And, still nothing could be done legally. Can you see why Trump might be a little upset over the double standard?
‘Double standard’ is an understatement.
Well said. Thank you, Mac.
The ineligibility of Barry still rankles to my bones.
“Wins” for Trump insofar as November is concerned, but that’s all.
At least Roberts recognized separation of powers in one decision. That’s the best we can hope for with him. .
Not being a lawyer but merely trying to be an honest man, they look like good rulings to me. Trump’s claim of blanket immunity from state courts was unfounded in my opinion, but the Supremes made it hard enough to deter too many frivolous actions.
The congressional case was decided correctly, IMO. To me, an amateur, that attempt was a sort of bill of attainder. Congress never even pretended to have a legislative interest. They were going after one man, and this ruling seems like it will kill the attempt.
Politically, Trump got the minimum short-term reprieve that he needed, but not the victory that he wanted.
Trump’s claim of blanket immunity from state courts was unfounded in my opinion
The reason this concept appears in the American government’s instruction manual is that the Constitutional Convention recalled some incidents during the struggle between Parliament and the Stuart monarchy. And this struggle ended up being more important than it should have been, as it climaxed in civil war and a royal beheading.
These incidents misused the judiciary for harassment rather than serious law enforcement. The King could have MPs arrested on bullshit charges—spitting on the sidewalk or failing to wear a hat in church, say—which, if inflicted on enough members, could paralyze Parliament when it couldn’t raise a quorum. And the legislature could play similar tricks on the monarch, most obviously paralyzing all operation of government by refusing to allow spending. When the US Constitution was drafted, these events (circa 1640s) were old but not yet ancient history, and they were very well understood even by the backwoods lawyers who filled Independence Hall in 1787.
Blatant judicial abuse and harassment of our elected President are tools the Democrats are only too happy to exploit. They shouldn’t be allowed to do so. Quite aside from the effective functioning of the Presidential office, simple respect for American law and order requires that the disruptive Left be stymied.
That’s a worthy argument, IMO, but I lean the other way at least in principle. Trump has never seemed to grasp the difference between being the CEO of a private company and being the elected president. We don’t elect dictators, we elect a chief administrative officer who is accountable to the law.
I agree with you about the danger inherent in constant lower-level harassment. In Trump’s case with respect to the NY case, the devil is in the details, and those details are yet to be litigated. Still, I do support the principle as I understand the Supremes to have stated. Trump made a sweeping claim of immunity, and as someone with some miles on the tires, it’s not something I can support.
I think the much greater problem was the congressional side of it, and that ruling was much closer to Trump’s position. I cast a write-in for Vermin Supreme last time, and will write in Kanye West this time, which is to say that I’m a highly disaffected citizen but also have no partisan ax to grind.
If I were emperor, God forbid, he’d have to release his tax returns. But I’m not emperor, and there’s no legal requirement for him to do so. As much as I find the Democrats to be despicable these days, I return to Trump’s promise in the ’16 campaign.
Past that, I’m no fan of how he’s handled his presidency, at least in terms of the leadership and temperament that I think everyone legitimately expects from a president. I realize that his opposition has been abusive and provocative beyond all reason, but that’s hardly new in this country’s history.
To quote Harry Truman: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” That would apply no matter what. The question becomes: “What then?” While I understand that Trump is a modern-day Andrew Jackson — a bull in the china shop — I think he’s been needlessly combative since his inauguration.
I cannot claim to be surprised by any of it, but that doesn’t make me happy about it either. We have poor leadership in Washington across the board, and it has hurt the country. I think it’s tragic in many ways, not the least being the Democratic Party’s behavior as well.
That’s a worthy argument, IMO, but I lean the other way at least in principle. Trump has never seemed to grasp the difference between being the CEO of a private company and being the elected president. We don’t elect dictators, we elect a chief administrative officer who is accountable to the law.
I agree with you about the danger inherent in constant lower-level harassment. In Trump’s case with respect to the NY case, the devil is in the details, and those details are yet to be litigated. Still, I do support the principle as I understand the Supremes to have stated. Trump made a sweeping claim of immunity, and as someone with some miles on the tires, it’s not something I can support.
I think the much greater problem was the congressional side of it, and that ruling was much closer to Trump’s position. I cast a write-in for Vermin Supreme last time, and will write in Kanye West this time, which is to say that I’m a highly disaffected citizen but also have no partisan ax to grind.
If I were emperor, God forbid, he’d have to release his tax returns. But I’m not emperor, and there’s no legal requirement for him to do so. As much as I find the Democrats to be despicable these days, I return to Trump’s promise in the ’16 campaign.
Past that, I’m no fan of how he’s handled his presidency, at least in terms of the leadership and temperament that I think everyone legitimately expects from a president. I realize that his opposition has been abusive and provocative beyond all reason, but that’s hardly new in this country’s history.
To quote Harry Truman: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” and “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” That would apply no matter what. The question becomes: “What then?” While I understand that Trump is a modern-day Andrew Jackson — a bull in the china shop — I think he’s been needlessly combative since his inauguration.
I cannot claim to be surprised by any of it, but that doesn’t make me happy about it either. We have poor leadership in Washington across the board, and it has hurt the country. I think it’s tragic in many ways, not the least being the Democratic Party’s behavior as well.
My love of this country goes down to the cellular level. We should be able to do a lot better than this.
^ I didn’t intentionally double post. This was caused by a glitch in legalinsurrection’s site software.
Hey, Random Crank, wasn’t Truman a member of the Klan, or at least benefit from the Klan? Did he ever denounce the Klan? Your quoting him sort of affiliates you with Klan as well, doesn’t it?
“While I understand that Trump is a modern-day Andrew Jackson — a bull in the china shop — I think he’s been needlessly combative since his inauguration.”
That’s one viewpoint. Mine is it the rest of the Republicans in cushy chairs have been nowhere near combative enough. Not a one of them has done anything positive on any issue that I care about. When they owned the entire government in Trump’s first two years, a bunch of promises they made to us went absolutely unfulfilled because of “timing issues.” They ran out the clock so as not to be accountable.
RandomCrank | July 9, 2020 at 1:06 pm
That’s a worthy argument, IMO, but I lean the other way at least in principle. Trump has never seemed to grasp the difference between being the CEO of a private company and being the elected president. We don’t elect dictators, we elect a chief administrative officer who is accountable to the law.
And pray tell, how has Trump acted like a dictator? By passing congress by establishing DACA unconstitutionally? Oh, wait, that was Obama. Trump wasn’t allowed to undo a previous presidents executive order acknowledged by courts as being unconstitutional because he didn’t follow proper procedure. So we still have the unconstitutional DACA in place until he follows procedure- proper procedure trumps constitutionality in the Supreme Court.
Trump has obeyed the courts- even when they issued ruling based solely on the principle “Orangeman Bad” without any actual basis in law. perhaps he should start enforcing the laws – which is one of his duties as POTUS- even when the courts say he shouldn’t because of the Orangman Bad principle.
The mistake Trump made was not invoking section 6103 which is a near blanket bar from Congress investigating a tax return or tax return information.
Under 6103(f), Only the members of the House Ways and Means committee and the Senate Finance committee can look at a specific individual’s tax return. No other members are allowed to look at it, No congressional staff are allowed to look at it.
Further disclosure is subject to criminal penalties and congressmen are not immune for criminal prosecution when performing their congressional duties since the disclosure is a felony.
Roberts opinion and neither of the dissents addressed 6103 is somewhat surprising, though Trump’s failure to raise the issue at the trial court level may have prevented him from raising the issue on appeal. Trump needs more competent attorneys.
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.
I’m still a bit vague about what this “criminal proceeding” is. Is there a crime involved? Aside from the obvious “crime” of being President, of course.
And if they’re just fishing for a crime which, so far as anyone knows, isn’t even there, wouldn’t the issue of self-incrimination be involved?
That hit me too … the word “criminal” sticks out like a sore thumb.
In my mind, criminal suggests there is a formal charge of wrongdoing, the applicable law is cited, the subject arraigned and charged entering a plea, and all that.
With as many times as “criminal” was cited, any commentary from SCOTUS about this being a ‘fishing expedition’ being sold to the people as normal and usual oversight by the legislative of the executive?
It seems like SCOTUS may be signaling to the left to identify and file a specific criminal charge that warrants a subpoena, otherwise, it just seems like a lot of fog.
Donald Trump is like Hans Brinker, the little boy who saved his country from a flood by putting his finger in the dike. He is holding back the flood of evil the best he can. But when he pulls his finger out, either after one term or two, that will pretty much be the end of our country as we know it.
As long as the U.S. has existed, people have predicted its imminent demise. This recalls a quote from the most quotable guy I know, myself: “The world’s bankruptcy courts and graveyards are stuffed with the rotting corpses of they who bet against the United States of America.”
As long as the world has existed people have always been surprised at the demise of great nations. This recalls a quote from the most quotable guy I know, myself: “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”
Apres Trump le deluge.
Although the dike story appears within the story of Hans Brinker, the boy is not Hans.
In theory, I don’t know that I disagree with the idea that it is a good idea for politicians to be transparent about their finances.
In theory.
In reality, our tax system is so ridiculously complex and inherently contradictory that NO ONE with a large business(es) could possibly file a completely clean return.
And, in reality, our hyper-partisan media and their bureaucratic allies have been allowed to weaponize our judicial system, so these proceedings will only be used to attack conservatives.
So, eff ’em. I hope that Trump drags this out to the bitter end. I held my nose to vote for him, but I now find that I respect him much more than any other “republican” politician.
As far as the decision go, they are correct, though the reasoning may not be the best.
There are two distinct venues here and a single legal argument. The venues are a state grand jury and the Congress of the United States.
In the case of Congress, accessing Trumps personal and corporate tax records serve neither a legitimate purpose of investigation for pending legislation nor for “oversight”. It is nothing more than a fishing expedition to unearth any damaging information on the President. Therefor, Congress has no power to obtain these documents. and, this shpuld extend to all residents of the country, nit just the President.
In the case of the NY grand jury, the grand jury has the authority to gather evidence to investigate where or not the potential for criminal activity exists. As not even reasonable suspicion of criminality is required for the body to perform that function, the laws have sealed all grand jury activity from public view. This is to both prevent criminals from escaping justice and to protect those who have committed no criminal acts. It is a safeguard. However, as has been shown in the case of Donald Trump, grand jury information has been improperly disseminated to those not authorized for it or even leaked to the general public. So, it become incumbent upon the State of New York to present adequate guarantees that the information presented to the grand jury will be protected from exposure.
So, the lone legal argument of absolute immunity cannot apply in either case. However, there may well be other arguments which could grant Trump the legal standing to legitimately refuse to honor these subpoenas. So, it is back to the beginning.
Drudge’s yellow journalism is appalling, posting these headlines IN GLARING RED CAPS:
RULE OF LAW
PRESIDENT CANNOT BLOCK RELEASE OF FINANCIAL RECORDS
TRUMP RAGES AT SUPREMES!
SUBPOENA SCARE
GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH JOIN MAJORITY
7-2 DECISION ROCKS POLITICAL WORLD
CONGRESS DENIED FOR NOW
No wonder the USA is going down.
Something happened to Drudge about two years ago. His site was much more balanced, if not sympathetic to Trump. Then, seemingly overnight, he became an exceptionally harsh Trump critic. Interesting, but tragic.
I use two news aggregators. For the MSM, i.e. the liberal view, it’s Memeorandum,” and the right-wing view it’s “Whatfinger.” Haven’t looked at Drudge for quite a while.
Frightening to think about how many tens of millions of great unwashed/unsuspecting eyeballs still visit the site and are influenced by the hyper-biased tripe.
Maybe Soros bought him out.
Has anyone recently seen Drudge bend his little finger?
Matt Drudge SOLD THE SITE. It’s under new management. Think he sold it last summer.
I quit visiting about 5 or 6 years ago. He was turning more and more left.
I’m curious if the same reasoning will prevail when a state prosecutor subpoenas say RBG’s tax records?
“The Supreme Court just open itself up to congressional demands for the individual justices’ tax returns. I can see a situation in which the House or the Senate decides that it must have access to all of the justices’ tax and financial records each year to determine if they’re influences in any way to write the decisions they write or vote the way they vote on numerous cases. The justices will not be able to argue that they are immune as a matter of separation of powers as they just shot down that argument as applies to the president.” – Mark Levin
So, just what is Vance investigating? Is this a “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” sort of thing? Doesn’t he need probable cause or reasonable suspicion or something?
Can Vance subpoena my tax records just to see if I’ve been honest?
according to Roberts, yes indeed.
The fact is that Vance had no real nexus other than what a convicted perjurer and convicted liar named Michael Cohen claimed.
Now the SCOTUS has opened the door for any D.A. in the 50 states to investigate this and any future President on the thinnest of grounds. Yeah, Trump can make different arguments. But in the end, SCOTUS has already ruled against those arguments.
Once again the dolts in black robes refused to see the slippery slope, of which they have created may in theor 200+ years of rulings. They refuse to learn from their own lousy history.
That can’t be good for The JUGHEARED OVERLORD’s regime.
Mandatory reporting of all income is unconstitutional as self-incrimination. The IRS got out of that by swearing not to share data with any other agency.
If they start sharing, you can’t be required to report all income.
Co-equal branches.
Three of ’em.
Can’t Trump just tell them to take a hike?
I can’t even read my own taxes, they usually run 60 pages or so.
You give my taxes to twelve accountants, you will likely have 12 different returns.
And take Trumps taxes to 12 accountants and pay them to shoot holes in them…
You will get 12 bags of holes.
Trump has some pretty good accountants. I don’t think they are going to be sloppy.
They want to see Presidet Trumps taxes, while the rest of us want to see the Democratic Candidate come out of his basement .