The transparent Mr. Trump
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the president of the United States is not above the law nor beyond the oversight of Congress is a heartening development for a nation that hasn’t until now been quite sure if it was descending into some form of autocracy.
The idea that Donald Trump as president enjoyed “absolute immunity” from investigation, including grand jury subpoenas and congressional oversight, might seem preposterous to most Americans. But it wasn’t to Mr. Trump and his lawyers — or an obeisant attorney general who displays loyalty to the president over faithfulness to the rule of law.
But the high court’s 7-2 decision goes only so far. Mr. Trump and his attorneys will all but certainly use every legal device they can to delay the production of Mr. Trump’s taxes and other financial records. The legal battles could stretch well past the November election.
So while there’s a victory here for the Constitution’s checks and balances, the practical effect is that voters could go to polls this year still not knowing what Mr. Trump is fighting so desperately to hide.
We may not know, then, how much more evidence there is that Mr. Trump paid hush money to a porn star and a Playboy model who said they had affairs with him — payments that likely violated the law. We may not know if those records hold more evidence of Mr. Trump’s business involvements with Russia, whose bad behavior he tries mightily to excuse. Nor will voters know for sure if Mr. Trump’s business dealings violate the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, designed to ensure presidents aren’t being paid by foreign states.
That doesn’t mean, however, that voters will be in the dark. While details remain hidden, the big picture is apparent. Mr. Trump’s secrecy about his financial affairs begs the question that only someone deep in Mr. Trump’s thrall can’t help but ask: What is he trying to hide?
And it’s not just on taxes. Why does Mr.
Trump fight release of redacted information from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, and Mr. Trump’s well-documented attempts to obstruct that probe? Why did he launch a vicious campaign of retribution against public servants who dutifully reported and testified of his attempt to extort a political favor from the president of Ukraine in exchange for military aid? Why did he try to suppress an inspector general’s report on the political pressure put on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for contradicting an entirely inaccurate tweet by the president about a hurricane? Why does he keep firing inspectors general?
Why, too, does he try to block the publication of books critical of him, an exercise in censorship sometimes aided by the Justice Department? And why last week was his one-time personal attorney, Michael Cohen, returned to prison after he refused to agree to not speak to the media or release a book on Mr. Trump?
We may not get specific answers to those questions by Election Day, but this much becomes apparent just in the asking: These are the acts of a tyrant, not a faithful American president. In his effort to hide the truth, the truth about Mr. Trump is absolutely exposed.