The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday firmly rejected President Donald Trump’s arguments for sweeping presidential immunity and ruled that a New York prosecutor can obtain his financial records but prevented – at least for now – Democratic-led House of Representatives committees from getting similar documents.
Two Democratic-controlled House of Representatives committees and New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance – also a Democrat – had demanded Trump”s tax documents over several years in order to determine whether current conflict-of-interest laws on a US president were tough enough.
Essentially, the president wants to keep his financial records secret. Unlike any other chief executive in recent history, he has not disclosed his taxes. Congressional oversight committees and prosecutors in New York want to see them. They subpoenaed Trump’s accountants and bankers for the president’s records, and those entities say they will do whatever a court orders.
US house speaker Nancy Pelosi called the supreme court ruling on Thursday allowing various financial records of President Donald Trump to be turned over to a grand jury as part of criminal investigation as “not good news” for Trump.
By 7-2 votes, the justice upheld the Manhattan district attorney’s demand for Trump’s tax returns but kept a hold on Trump’s financial re that congress has been seeking for more than a year.
The cases could have long-term implications for the ability of lawmakers to scrutinize presidents, as well as test the claim by Trump’s attorneys that a president is immune from criminal investigation while in office. Stormy problems – One of the cases before the Supreme Court relates to an investigation opened by the state of New York, and poses the specific question of the president’s immunity from prosecution.
