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With a majority of 7-2, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled against complete presidential immunity by allowing a New York prosecutor access to the President's financial records. However, Congress has been prevented from similar access to the documents, for the time being.
In the case Trump v. Vance, District Attorney of the County of New York, et al., the SCOTUS laid down the principle that a sitting President cannot evade criminal investigation, thereby ruling that the subpoena issued for retrieving his financial records for turning over to a grand jury can be enforced. Despite this, the Court chose to not go into the aspect of whether Congress could also obtain the financial documents, and sent the matter back to the lower courts.
'There is nothing inherently stigmatizing in case of a President performing 'the citizen's normal duty of furnishing information
It is to be noted that the instant case involves the first state criminal subpoena
directed to a President, which the President claims to be unenforceable.
HELD
The judgment commences on the following note:
"In our system of the judiciary, 'the public attracts a right to each man's evidence'. Since the earliest days of the Republic, 'everyman' has included the President of us. Either Jefferson or Clinton, Presidents have uniformly testifed or produced documents in criminal proceedings when called upon by federal courts."
Chief Justice John Roberts has authored the ruling and was joined by Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh. Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito both dissented.
Rejecting Trump's argument, it was held that Article II and the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution do not preclude or require a heightened standard for the issuance of a state criminal subpoena to a sitting President. This was supported by the direction given by John Marshall in 1807 in a treason trial of Aaron Burr to grant Burr's motion for a subpoena duces tecum directed at President Thomas Jefferson. "In the 2 centuries since Burr, Presidents succeeding from Monroe to Clinton have always accepted Marshall's ruling that the Chief Executive is
subject to subpoena and have uniformly agreed to testify when called in criminal proceedings".
The ruling had also been applied in the case of the United States v. Nixon wherein the Court had rejected Nixon's claims of the absolute privilege of confidentiality for all presidential communication during the Watergate Scandal.
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