US President Donald Trump, who is facing impeachment hearings started by House Democrats, faced another setback on Monday when a federal appeals court in New York upheld a lower court verdict that his tax returns can be investigated by the state criminal investigators. Trump had sought to overturn the lower court verdict on the grounds that the president is immune from state criminal law.
The concept of presidential immunity does not extend to investigative steps like the grand jury subpoena, the three-judge appeals panel said. The court rejected the president's lawyers' argument that the Constitution bars states from putting the president through criminal process while he is in office.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr demanded Trump's tax records as part of a broader investigation into the alleged payments to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump before he ran for president in 2016.
Key win for Manhattan District Attorney
Trump, who lost a key battle with Vance Jr, will take the case to the Supreme Court. The appeals court verdict makes it possible for the investigators to get hold of the President's tax returns but Trump's lawyers said they are going to the Supreme Court. "The decision of the Second Circuit will be taken to the Supreme Court ... The issue raised in this case goes to the heart of our Republic. The constitutional issues are significant," Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow said in a statement, CNN reported.
"...Presidential immunity does not bar a state grand jury from issuing a subpoena in aid of its investigation of potential crimes committed by persons within its jurisdiction, even if that investigation may in some way implicate the president," the federal court said in its verdict. "The only question before us is whether a state may lawfully demand production by a third party of the President's personal financial records for use in a grand jury investigation while the President is in office."
The District Attorney had argued that the records sought in the grand jury subpoena related to business and financial matters of the president, not those relating to the official presidential acts. They also argued that the records relate to the period before Trump took office as president.
