Prosecutors can now see Trump taxes: Top court
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the release of President Donald Trump’s personal tax and financial records to New York prosectors, but not to Congress.
The American public won’t get to see the records immediately as they will be released to a grand jury, whose proceedings are secret. Using other legal recourse still available, Trump’s lawyers can prevent the release till at least the November elections.
Ruling 7-2 in two separate cases, the court rejected the central argument by Trump’s lawyers that US presidents enjoy complete immunity from criminal prosecution while in office.
“We reaffirm that in principle today and hold that the president is neither absolutely immune from criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” chief justice John Robert wrote in the majority opinion in the New York investigation case. “In our judicial system, the public has a right to every man’s evidence. Since the earliest days of the Republic, ‘every man’ has included the President of the United States.”
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both nominated by Trump, ruled with the majority opinion.
Trump, who has refused to release his financial records, lashed out in a string of tweets. “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!”
In a separate case, the Supreme Court ordered the House oversight committees to go back to lower courts to get financial records it had sought.