SCOTUSblog by Amy Howe 3/9/2020
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 March 31, 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 March 31, 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:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/03/symposium-justices-to-tackle-disputes-over-access-to-trump-financial-records/#more-292402
