The United States Supreme Court examines its most political file of the year on Tuesday: Donald Trump’s refusal to deliver his financial documents to Congress and to a New York prosecutor in the name of a very broad vision of his presidential immunity .
The nine wise men of the high court will question the parties from 10:00 am (14:00 GMT) during a telephone hearing which will be broadcast live according to an exceptional modus operandi linked to the pandemic of new coronavirus.
Their decision, expected by the end of June, may help lift the veil before the presidential election in November on the affairs of Donald Trump, who unlike all his predecessors since the 1970s refuses to publish his tax returns .
►►► Read also : Coronavirus in the United States: no renegotiation of the trade agreement with China, says Donald Trump
The billionaire Republican, candidate for his re-election, made his fortune a campaign argument, but his lack of transparency feeds speculation on the extent of his wealth, on his relations with the tax authorities or on potential conflicts of interest.
Beyond this issue for Donald Trump, the high court’s decision will also have far-reaching long-term implications for the balance of power in the United States.
The President’s lawyers contend that he enjoys total immunity during the exercise of his mandate and that this is necessary so that he can concentrate on his work without being “harassed“by prosecutors or parliamentarians.
They therefore went to court to prevent the billionaire’s former accounting firm and two of its banks from transmitting a whole series of financial documents, relating to his affairs from 2011 to 2018, demanded by congressional commissions and a Manhattan prosecutor.
A “terrible“compromise
The courts rejected their arguments at first instance and then on appeal. If the Supreme Court, which has two judges appointed by Donald Trump, had not taken up the matter, the Mazars cabinet and the banks Deutsche Bank and Capital One should have turned over their records.
By agreeing to review the case, the high court seemed to indicate that it could influence these decisions.
In the first part of the case, which concerns the injunctions issued by three committees of the House of Representatives in the hands of the Democrats, she asked the parties to give her thoughts on the political nature of their disagreement.
►►► Read also : United States: exposed itself, the White House defends the country’s restart
If it were to conclude that the issue was political in nature and not legal, it could find that the courts were wrong to get involved. This would invalidate previous decisions without supporting Donald Trump.
Concretely, the three financial institutions would be free to send the documents to Congress or to refuse.
It could pass for “a compromise“but it would be”terrible for the separation of powers“said law professor Stephen Vladeck in a podium.”This would deprive Congress of the mechanism to enforce its injunctions“and would weaken his investigative powers, he said.
Film Actress X
This scenario is not envisaged in the second part of the case, which relates to a request addressed by the Manhattan prosecutor to the Mazars cabinet within the framework of an investigation into a possible violation of New York laws on the financing of election campaigns.
Democrat Cyrus Vance is seeking information about a 2016 payment to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels to buy his silence on an alleged affair with the billionaire, which is not in his campaign accounts.
This time, the president’s attorneys assure that justice cannot be of interest to him while he’s in the White House. During the proceedings, they even went so far as to state that he could kill someone on the 5th avenue in New York without immediate attention.
►►► Read also : Coronavirus in the United States: a “death clock” in Times Square to denounce the late reaction of Trump
Many jurists, including former officials of the Ministry of Justice, have written to the Court underlining that an acting president could not be charged in the exercise of his / her functions, but that this did not prohibit investigations .
They recall that the Temple of American Law forced Republican President Richard Nixon to hand over tapes of the Watergate spying scandal and authorized the pursuit of civil proceedings for sexual harassment against Democrat Bill Clinton.
–
