The Supreme Court deals a blow to Trump's delusions of untrammeled power
In a set of rulings — one testing whether Congress can obtain financial records of the president from third parties (Mazars USA, Deutsche Bank and Capital One) and the other whether the president is immune from state criminal investigation (in this case, a subpoena from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. on possible tax violations) while in office — the Supreme Court, with votes from both of President Trump’s appointees, effectively held the president is not above the law, dealing a blow to his delusions of absolute power.
In Vance, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. — writing for a 7-to-2 majority — held that the president not only lacks immunity from a state criminal investigation but also enjoys no special, heightened standard of proof. Roberts recounted the history of the trial of Aaron Burr and then-Chief Justice John Marshall’s ruling that President Thomas Jefferson was not immune from a subpoena for records. “In the two centuries since the Burr trial, successive Presidents have accepted Marshall’s ruling that the Chief Executive is subject to subpoena,” Roberts wrote. He also cited U.S. v. Nixon, which held that “the President’s ‘generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial.’” While these cases involved federal subpoenas, Roberts held that state subpoenas are no different. Rejecting the notion of absolute immunity, Roberts found that “we cannot conclude that absolute immunity is necessary or appropriate under Article II or the Supremacy Clause.” (On this, he points out there was unanimous agreement in the court.)
As for the standard to be used, Roberts also found, “Requiring a state grand jury to meet a heightened standard of need would hobble the grand jury’s ability to acquire ‘all information that might possibly bear on its investigation.’” The lack of a heightened standard of proof leaves the president “the same protections available to every other citizen, including the right to challenge the subpoena on any grounds permitted by state law, which usually include bad faith and undue burden or breadth.” The president stands as every other citizens does — not above the law, but fully within its reach and the beneficiary of its protections. This is as strong a statement as “the president is not above the law” as one could hope for.
In an even more surprising ruling, also 7-2, Roberts wrote for the majority that the president is not shielded from congressional subpoenas directed at third parties for his documents. The case will be remanded to take into consideration four factors in determining whether to enforce the subpoenas. If the case does not involve executive deliberations, as was the case involving Trump’s financial dealings, the safeguards attendant to “candid, confidential deliberations within the Executive Branch” do not apply. “We decline to transplant that protection root and branch to cases involving nonprivileged, private information, which by definition does not implicate sensitive Executive Branch deliberations. The standards proposed by the President and the Solicitor General—if applied outside the context of privileged information—would risk seriously impeding Congress in carrying out its responsibilities.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/09/supreme-court-deals-blow-trumps-delusions-untrammeled-power/
Posted this Jennifer Rubin opinion piece here because I really like the article's title...
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