WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court is expected to decide this week whether President Trump can keep his tax returns and other financial records secret.
The proceedings follow the testimony of former President Michael Cohen’s personal lawyer, who told Congress in 2019 that Trump inflated his wealth to secure large loans, prompting multiple House committees led by Democrats to cite financial institutions in Trump.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is also seeking eight years of the president’s tax returns as part of his investigation into whether Trump secretly made payments to various women, including adult film star Stormy Daniels, before the 2016 elections.
Trump has repeatedly denied those allegations. And the president has made repeated attempts to block the legal challenges that threaten to make his financial businesses public, suing two of his financial institutions, Capital One and Deutsche Bank, to prevent them from releasing their records to Democrats.
In their April 2019 lawsuit, the President and his sons argued that the investigations into his financial affairs were a partisan trick of his political rivals.
“Their goal is to delve into the Plaintiffs’ private financial information in the hope that they will stumble upon something they can publicly expose and use as a political tool against the President,” the lawsuit said.
Trump’s attorneys also tried to block the subpoena from Vance’s office, suing the New York Democrat prosecutor and arguing that prosecutors cannot search records from his accounting firm Mazars for a long time while the president is still in office.
They appeared before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with Vance and the Democrats in the House of Representatives, and ruled that they had the right to search the president’s financial records.
Trump’s legal team brought the matter to the Supreme Court, the highest legal authority in the United States.
It is unclear how Supreme Court justices will vote, but at a May hearing, the powerful bank suggested they would send the case to a lower court, indicating that the president’s tax returns may not be made public before the November election. , if they do.
Court President John Roberts acknowledged that Congress had the right to issue subpoenas, while Judge Brett Kavanaugh, chosen by Trump for the court, advocated for the president and said his office needed protection.
Attorney Patrick Strawbridge, who represents the president, said the demands of Congress were similar to “harassment” and violated Trump’s ability to carry out his duties.
Jay Sekulow, another of the president’s attorneys, who represents him in the Vance case, argued that Trump should be immune from criminal investigations while in office, so that other prosecutors with political agendas decide to take partisan legal action against the president.
Similarly, Jeffrey Wall, an attorney general representing the Justice Department, accused the House of trying to meddle in Trump’s personal life.
“The potential to harass and undermine the president and the presidency is obvious,” Wall told the Supreme Court in May.
However, Vance noted that Richard Nixon was also the subject of a criminal investigation while he was an acting US president and argued that Trump was no different.
Trump’s financial and commercial affairs have been scrutinized for years, and Democrats accuse him of capitalizing on the presidency in his dealings with foreign governments and by encouraging diplomats and Secret Service agents to stay at his hotels in the United States. and all over the world.
A Supreme Court decision on the president’s longstanding legal problems is expected within the next week, as judges hear a series of high-profile issues before their summer vacation. However, the decision could be extended until next week, as the court session started late due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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