The unanimous ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means Trump will turn once again to the Supreme Court.
A federal appeals court has unanimously rejected arguments made by lawyers for President Trump regarding a subpoena for his tax returns in a case that’s examining whether he or his business entities engaged in criminal activities over the past several years. The ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which effectively says the president must allow his accounting firm Mazars USA to hand over tax records for the last eight years to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., will likely be appealed by Trump’s legal team to the Supreme Court. During the appeals process, the order from the court will likely be stayed, which means Trump’s taxes will almost certainly not be handed over to Vance before the presidential election takes place on November 3. Trump’s lawyers lost an argument before the Supreme Court in July related to the same case, when they asserted that the president had “absolute immunity” from all legal cases, including state investigations like Vance’s. In a 7-2 decision, the Court rejected that notion, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing that “no citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding.” The case was remanded back to lower courts, however, in order to allow other legal challenges by Trump to proceed.
