Donald Trump’s bizarre Twitter rant this morning is likely due to a critical case before the Supreme Court that could reveal the president’s tax returns. Trump, for some reason, has fought to have them released even though he vowed to release them during his campaign. It could be — and just stay with me here — that Trump has something to hide.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 7-2 opinion saying that President Trump is not categorically immune from grand jury requests. And there’s more bad news for Trump as both Supreme court Justices nominated by the president, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, sided with the majority, The Guardian reports.
“Two hundred years ago, a great jurist of our Court established that no citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding,” Roberts wrote in the decision.
“We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” he added.
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Here’s a breakdown of what took place:
Trump’s legal claims failed, 7-2. The NY case will go back to the trial court, and Trump can try other arguments, but his claims before SCOTUS flopped. He only got 2 votes.
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) July 9, 2020
Supreme Court says 200 years of history reject Trump’s legal claims
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) July 9, 2020
However, the Supreme Court blacked Congress from obtaining Trump’s financial records. To be clear, there were two cases this morning involving Trump’s finances.
“The approach proposed by the House, which relies on precedents
that did not involve the President’s papers, fails to take adequate account of the significant separation of powers issues raised by congressional subpoenas for the President’s information. “— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) July 9, 2020
It’s a bad day for Trump when the Justices on the Supreme Court — that he nominated — decided to side with the law instead of aligning themselves with our lawless president and enabling a coverup. So, one case didn’t go our way, but the other one did. We’ll take it. Ivanka is going to have to change her daddy-president’s Depends this morning.
Featured image via DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Marianique Santos.
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