The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the president is not immune from prosecution, and must obey subpoenas sent by a state court and a congressional committee seeking his personal financial records.
The court punted, however, in that it sent the two cases -- one state and one federal -- back to lower courts for further consideration. Result: His personal financial records are not likely to become public until after election day.
Technically, the state case seeking his tax returns did not ask the president for them, but rather his accounting firm, and the records will have to be given to a New York grand jury investigating his activities before he was elected president. And since grand jury investigations are secret, whatever is in the documents won't be known until and unless charges are filed.
The president has tried to block any and all attempts to see his financial records, unlike other presidents, who have voluntarily released them. And this causes resident cynic Pug Mahoney to wonder, What's he hiding? If he has done nothing wrong or illegal, why not show the evidence?
Initially, he claimed his returns were "still under audit" by the Internal Revenue Service, that he is audited every year and therefore he cannot release them. But the IRS responded that while the agency cannot release the documents, any individual can do so at any time.
Congressional committees, however, can subpoena such documents from the agency for use in formulating legislation, but the president's attorneys argued that the current move is more political harassment than real legislative activity.
Both case now go back to lower courts to be resolved, and that's likely to take many months. The major part of today's decision, however, is that no one -- not even the president of the United States -- is above the law. And this follows precedents set in cases involved both Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Bill Clinton.
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