President not immune to grand jury process, Supreme Court rules

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) – The president is not above the law and may have to turn over some of his financial and tax records. That is the bottom line from the Supreme Court Thursday, ruling in two cases about the power of Congress and the legal immunity of the president.

In a pivotal decision, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that President Trump is not immune to the grand jury process.

It stems from the case of a New York prosecutor seeking the president’s records for an investigation into payments made to two women who claim they had affairs with him, which the president denies.

But the records won’t automatically be released. The case now goes back down to the trial court where the president’s team has to come up with a reason to block the records that would apply to anyone else. They can’t just say he’s immune because he’s president.

The justices also sent a separate case back to the lower courts regarding subpoenas from three House committees for several years’ worth of President Trump’s business records from his accounting firm and two banks.

That is partly a response to claims by the president’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen, who said his old boss would inflate or deflate his assets to serve his own purposes.

House Democrats also want to know whether the president had any financial dealings with Russia before taking office, something President Trump has frequently denied.

The decisions mean both of these cases will not be resolved until after the election, since they’ll go back to lower courts and then can be appealed.

The Supreme Court has faced questions before about a president’s power to resist a subpoena. Presidents Nixon and Clinton lost in each of those unanimous rulings.

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