Trump’s taxes may be released to Manhattan grand jury, supreme court rules
The supreme court has ruled that a Manhattan grand jury may have access to some of Donald Trump’s financial documents, dealing a major blow to the president in his fight to keep his tax records secret – although the records were not expected to become public ahead of the November election.
Prosecutors in New York had sought the documents as part of an investigation into whether Trump had improperly handled hush payments, including one to the pornographic film actor star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“This is a tremendous victory for our nation’s system of justice and its founding principle that no one – not even a president – is above the law,” Cy Vance Jr, the Manhattan district attorney, said. “Our investigation, which was delayed for almost a year by this lawsuit, will resume, guided as always by the grand jury’s solemn obligation to follow the law and the facts, wherever they may lead.”
Legal analysts warned, however, that the subpoena issued by Vance was not likely to be enforced anytime soon, and said Trump’s tax records were not likely to become public in the near future, under grand jury secrecy rules. The records could come to light if Trump is charged with a crime after he leaves office.
Trump won a temporary reprieve in a separate fight over his financial records, in which multiple Democratic-led committees in Congress had sought documents for investigations including an ethics investigation and one into foreign influence in the 2016 election.
The court affirmed both that Congress had the power to subpoena the documents and that the president had some privilege not to turn them over, and ordered a lower court to reconsider the “significant separation of powers concerns implicated by congressional subpoenas for the president’s information”.
Trump reacted angrily on Twitter. “This is all a political prosecution,” he wrote, referring to the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller. “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!”...
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/ju ... urt-ruling
