Crowds line up outside the Supreme Court as he resumes his oral arguments at the start of his new term in Washington on October 7, 2019.
Mary F. Calvert | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort by Democrats in the House of Representatives to speed up the process by which they can continue to fight for President Donald Trump’s financial records in lower courts.
The judges denied a request by attorneys for several Democratic-led Congressional committees to finalize their ruling earlier this month that it blocked enforcement of subpoenas the committees had issued seeking financial information from the accounting firm and banks. of the president.
The court rejected the Democrats’ request in an unsigned order, and only Judge Sonia Sotomayor said she would have granted it.
The superior court ruled on July 9 that the federal appeals courts in Washington and New York that upheld the Democrats’ subpoenas did not adequately address issues related to the separation of powers from the Constitution. The Supreme Court allowed the committees to try again under a stricter standard, which they have said they intend to do.
The July 9 ruling effectively ensured that the public would not see Trump’s financial records before the November election. Monday’s action served to make such a possibility even less likely. Trump, who faces presumptive Democratic candidate Joe Biden, is the first president in decades not to make his tax returns public.
Also on July 9, the judges ruled in favor of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. in a separate case on access to the president’s records, rejecting Trump’s immunity claims from the subpoenas but allowing him to raise new objections. Both decisions were 7-2.
While the court did not grant the House Democrats’ request, it did grant a similar request made by Vance, and ruled in that case on Friday. Vance’s office has said it is investigating possible violations of state law, but has provided few details.
Typically, Supreme Court rulings take effect 25 days after the rulings are issued, which is Aug. 3 in tax filing cases.
Douglas Letter, the attorney general for the House of Representatives, asked the court to put the sentence into effect immediately, noting that Congress’s current mandate expires in January. The letter wrote in court documents that the committees’ opportunity to search the president’s records “decreases day by day.”
Oversight, intelligence and financial services committees have said they are seeking the president’s financial records to inform potential legislation and as part of investigations into foreign money laundering and foreign interference in the US election.
In a presentation asking the superior court to issue a ruling immediately, Letter wrote that doing so would allow the House to obtain the necessary records “to address, among other issues, conflicts of interest that threaten to undermine the Presidency, the laundering of money and unsafe lending practices and foreign interference in the US elections and any other continuing threats to national security arising from President Trump’s foreign financial entanglements. “
William Consovoy, a lawyer for Trump, urged judges to reject the effort by House Democrats.
“The Committees voluntarily suspended the application of subpoenas for more than six months as these cases progressed through the lower courts,” Consovoy wrote in a document. “You shouldn’t be heard complaining that the procedures are proceeding too slowly.”
Trump’s personal attorneys, a representative of Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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