President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to hear a second case concerning a subpoena to his accounting firm for his financial records. The new petition, objecting to a subpoena from a House committee, follows a petition filed last month about a similar subpoena from Manhattan prosecutors.
»PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Appeals court rules Trump must turn over financial records to Congress
Both cases are moving fast, and the court could announce as soon as Dec. 13 whether the justices will hear them. If the court agrees to weigh in, it will probably issue a decision by June, in the midst of the final months of the presidential campaign.
A Supreme Court ruling in either or both cases would almost certainly produce a major statement on presidential immunity from criminal and congressional investigations.
In both cases, Trump sued to stop his accounting firm, Mazars USA, from complying with subpoenas for records. Federal appeals courts ruled against Trump in both cases.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear earlier cases, the petition said, when “the president has been subjected to novel legal process and seeks review.” In cases involving Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, United States v. Nixon in 1974 and Clinton v. Jones in 1997, the court granted review but in the end handed both presidents unanimous losses.
The Nixon case led to his resignation in the face of mounting calls for his impeachment. The Clinton case led to Clinton’s impeachment, though he survived a Senate vote on his removal.
»FROM NOVEMBER: Supreme Court shields Trump’s financial records for now
The new case concerns a subpoena that the House Oversight and Reform Committee issued in April after it learned that Trump’s ethics disclosure forms did not list a debt for hush-money payments made in the run-up to the 2016 election.
Trump and his company reimbursed the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for payments to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump. The president has denied the relationship. (Cohen is serving a three-year sentence in prison related to the case.)
»MORE: House urges court to lift hold on subpoena for Trump records
Cohen also told the committee that Trump had inflated and deflated descriptions of his assets on financial statements to obtain loans and reduce his taxes.
Trump’s lawyers argued the subpoena was improper because the committee lacked a legitimate legislative purpose for seeking the information. In October, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that argument.
