House Urges Supreme Court to Lift Shield on Trump Financial Records
House Urges Supreme Court to Lift Shield on Trump Financial Records
(Bloomberg) -- The House of Representatives and a New York prosecutor urged the U.S. Supreme Court to allow access to Donald Trump’s financial records in clashes that are testing the court’s willingness to insulate the president from investigations.
The Democratic-controlled House on Thursday asked the court to allow immediate enforcement of a subpoena, saying lawmakers have broad authority to investigate presidential misconduct. Chief Justice John Roberts this week temporarily blocked the subpoena in an administrative order.
In a separate case, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance on Thursday asked the court to reject Trump’s appeal of a ruling that would allow his tax returns to be turned over to a grand jury. In both cases, subpoenas went to Mazars USA, Trump’s accounting firm, which isn’t contesting the demands.
The House said that, if the court extends Roberts’s hold, it should put the case on a fast track so the justices can resolve it in the term that ends in late June. The House said Trump should be required to file his appeal of a lower court ruling against him by Dec. 2, which would let the justices use their Dec. 13 private conference to discuss whether to hear the case.
“Each day of delay harms Congress by depriving it of important information it needs to carry out its constitutional responsibilities,” the House said in a brief filed by the chamber’s general counsel, Douglas Letter.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee says it wants the documents because it’s considering revising the federal ethics-in-government laws. Trump’s lawyers say the primary purpose is law enforcement, something they say is beyond Congress’s legislative powers. A federal appeals court in Washington backed the committee on a 2-1 vote.
Hush Payments
The cases, which arrive as House Democrats press an impeachment investigation of Trump, are pulling the Supreme Court into a partisan fray over the president’s personal conduct and business dealings.
Vance is investigating whether Trump’s business falsified business records to disguise hush payments to two women who claimed they had sex with Trump before he took office. In an appeal filed last week, Trump contended that presidents have broad immunity from criminal investigations while in office.
Trump’s “assertion of absolute presidential immunity is foreclosed by this court’s precedent, which conclusively establishes that no person in this country is so high that he is above the law,” Vance argued in the new filing.
Under an agreement with Vance, Trump asked the court to resolve the case in its current term. In exchange, Vance’s office said it won’t try to enforce the subpoena until the Supreme Court acts.
To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, John Harney
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