The court heard arguments over requests for documents from Mr. Trump’s accounting firm and several financial institutions.
Attorneys representing President Trump asked the Supreme Court to shield his tax and business records from investigators on Tuesday, arguing in a pair of high-profile cases that subpoenas from Congress and state authorities should be quashed given his responsibilities as head of the executive branch.
The court heard oral arguments in the cases over teleconference as justices continue to work remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. The disputes focus on requests for documents from Mr. Trump’s accounting firm and several financial institutions as part of investigations by three Houses committees and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance into the president’s business dealings.
During the first round of questioning on Tuesday, the president’s personal attorney and a lawyer for the Justice Department, which is backing the president, asserted that the congressional subpoenas served no legislative purpose and were therefore invalid. They warned that upholding the subpoenas from the House committees would effectively give Congress the green light to investigate the private lives of their political opponents.
„I think it is very hard to imagine that House is ever going to have the power… to subpoena the records of the president,“ Patrick Strawbridge, appearing on behalf of the president, said in response to a question from Chief Justice John Roberts. „The House has limited powers to regulate the presidency itself,“ he added.
Strawbridge asserted in questioning from Justice Brett Kavanaugh that the Congressional subpoenas were meant not to aid in lawmaking, but serve as a „dragnet“ to uncover alleged wrongdoing of the president. Jeffrey Wall, principal deputy solicitor general, agreed, saying the subpoenas „don’t match up with what the committees say they’re doing.“
The four liberal justices were deeply skeptical of the argument put forth by the president’s attorneys. Justice Elena Kagan noted that previous disputes between the legislative and executive branches are typically resolved by both sides making accommodations, and questioned why the court should rule that the president’s personal records can be shielded from a congressional subpoena.
„What it seems to me you’re asking us to do is to put a kind of 10-ton weight on the scales between the president and Congress,“ Kagan said. But Wall argued the danger came not from the court intervening, but rather from overly broad congressional subpoenas that „will harm and undermine the presidency of the United States.“
„Not just this president. The institution of the presidency going forward,“ Wall said.
Douglas Letter, the general counsel for the House, pushed back on the claim that the subpoenas were targeting the president to damage him politically. He argued there is nothing novel about the subpoenas seeking Mr. Trump’s records and said Congress is conducting its oversight responsibilities to determine whether new legislation concerning financial disclosures and government ethics is needed.
„There is no responsible claim here that all that’s going on is harassment,“ Letter told the justices, saying the House committees were seeking the records to inform their legislative duties.
