“Political Prosecution!”: Trump Rages After Supreme Court Tax Ruling

Update (1042ET): Deutsche Bank says it will comply with the Supreme Court’s decision and will provide Trump’s records to NY prosecutors, according to Bloomberg.

An angry Trump, meanwhile, tweeted that the Supreme Court decision is “all a political prosecution,” and that “Courts in the past have given “broad deference.” BUT NOT ME!”

The Supreme Court sends case back to Lower Court, arguments to continue. This is all a political prosecution. 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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020

Courts in the past have given “broad deference”. BUT NOT ME!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020

Trump continued:

….No Republican Senate Judiciary response, NO “JUSTICE”, NO FBI, NO NOTHING. Major horror show REPORTS on Comey & McCabe, guilty as hell, nothing happens. Catch Obama & Biden cold, nothing. A 3 year, $45,000,000 Mueller HOAX, failed – investigated everything….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020

….for another President. This is about PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT. We catch the other side SPYING on my campaign, the biggest political crime and scandal in U.S. history, and NOTHING HAPPENS. But despite this, I have done more than any President in history in first 3 1/2 years!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020

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Update (1023ET): After granting NY prosecutors Trump’s tax returns, the Supreme Court has denied efforts by House Democrats to subpoena the records – and has kicked the case back to lower courts for further consideration.

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The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in a 7-2 decision that a New York Grand Jury can have President Trump’s tax records, after Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. subpoenaed eight years of returns along with other records in connection with an investigation into hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, according to Axios.

Vance Jr. (whose father was Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of State – and who took money from Harvey Weinstein while declining to prosecute him for sexual assault – and who sought a reduced sex-offender status for Jeffrey Epstein) wants to see if Trump’s reimbursement of former attorney Michael Cohen for payments to Daniels and another woman violated any laws in New York, and whether Trump’s accounting firm falsely accounted for the reimbursements as a legal expense.

House Democrats, meanwhile, issued three subpoenas to Deutsche Bank, Capital One, and the president’s longtime accounting firm, Mazars, for evidence of illegal conduct or hidden loyalties – despite no evidence of financial crimes or ‘collusion’ with Russia.

“He refuses to turn over the tax returns, what does he have to hide?” Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters mused last May.

Then Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote in a memo that his subpoena was necessary to investigate whether President Trump “may have engaged in illegal conduct before and during his tenure in office.” –WSJ

Democrats then argued that obtaining Trump’s financial records could be a “useful case study” to learn about “unsafe lending practices” and “money laundering,” along with “efforts b Russia and other foreign entities to influence the US political process during and since the 2016 US election.” (via the WSJ)

Yet, as The Journal notes, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neomi Rao explained in her Mazars dissent:

 “Allowing the Committee to issue this subpoena for legislative purposes would turn Congress into a roving inquisition over a co-equal branch of government.”

Medical records, private emails, cell phone logs – none of the President’s personal papers would be out of Congress’s reach.

What are the chances Trump’s returns will leak out of New York?