SCOTUS to tackle disputes over access to Trump financial records

From SCOTUSblog

During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump famously refused to release copies of his tax returns – a departure from the practice of nearly all major-party candidates in recent decades – and he has continued to decline to do so since then. But on May 12, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a trio of cases arising from efforts by a New York grand jury and congressional committees to gain access to the president’s financial records. The court’s ruling could be significant not only for Trump and his businesses, but also for the presidency more broadly.

The first two cases slated for argument on May 12, Trump v. Mazars USA and Trump v. Deutsche Bank, involve subpoenas issued by congressional committees. In the Mazars case, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform issued a subpoena in April 2019 to Mazars, the president’s longtime accounting firm, for financial records relating to Trump and his businesses. The committee said that it wanted the documents as part of its investigation into the adequacy of current government ethics laws.

Trump asked a federal district court in Washington to bar Mazars from complying with the subpoena, arguing that the committee’s investigation into his finances does not serve the kind of legitimate legislative purpose that the Supreme Court’s cases require. The district court rejected that argument, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. [...] (more)

UPDATE (this ScotusBlog post originally was published there on March 9, 2020): The Supreme Court added a new wrinkle to the congressional-subpoena cases earlier this week with a request for additional briefing that will be due just four days before the May 12 oral argument. In a brief order on Monday, the justices instructed the parties to the cases and the federal government, which filed a “friend of the court” brief supporting Trump, to file supplemental briefs addressing whether courts should stay out of the fight over the subpoenas because it is fundamentally a dispute between the branches of government. If the justices were to conclude that the cases are that kind of a dispute, they could dismiss them without ruling on the merits. The next steps could then depend on how Trump’s accountant and lenders respond: Without a ruling in his favor from the Supreme Court, Trump might not be able to block them from turning over his records, but on the other hand Congress might not be able to enforce the subpoenas if the companies refuse to comply. Monday’s order does not address the New York grand jury case. But even if the court rules against the president in that case and the subpoena for his tax returns is ultimately enforced, grand jury secrecy rules would likely mean that the records would remain under wraps for some time – at the very least, until after the 2020 election.

A decision in the cases is expected by summer.