The headline of the day from the U.S. Supreme Court is the New York state prosecutors may obtain ex-president Trump’s tax returns. The opinion took the form of a simple, unsigned order. Sometimes what is unsaid is as illuminating as what is said.
When the case was before
the Court last year, a 7-2 decision held that presidents do not have special rights
to prevent state criminal procedures and subpoenas. The court also said,
however, that the defendant (Trump) retained the same rights to object to
subpoenas as other individuals would. When the case went back down the first
time, Trump raised some of those “normal” objections. When those objections
were rejected, the case came back up to the Supreme Court.
This is a long way
of saying that the Supreme Court was not interested in overturning the lower
court’s decision that Trump’s “normal” objections had no merit. Therefore, the
subpoenas for tax records may be enforced.
Again, as I say
frequently here, the opportunity to obtain financial records does not prove anything.
It is only after the information is evaluated that possible criminal charges
might be brought.
Some pundits have
questioned why it took so long for the Supreme Court to make what appears to be
a fairly simple order. One reason is that the High Court typically tries to
avoid making decisions that have immediate political overtones. That also may
explain why, in other orders today, the Court finally put an end to the meritless
post-election litigation.
As expected, Mr.
Trump’s response to the order was vociferous, maintaining that this order will make
it easier for the Democrats to continue their incessant personal attacks
against him. His comments are, to use a distinctly non-legal term, garbage.
Read again, what I wrote a few paragraphs earlier. All that this order does is
to allow subpoenas to obtain financial records, exactly the same way they would
if they were issued to you or me.
If criminal actions
follow, they will be due to the evidence uncovered.
No comments:
Post a Comment