Frankly, these rulings smack too much of Chief Justice John Roberts being hell-bent on his Supreme Court having its cake (of judicial independence) and eating it too (by pandering to both sides of America’s coarsening political divide).
In any case, I am not surprised. I’m just dismayed because
- it took nearly four years to establish that Trump has no “absolute immunity” from Congressional oversight or state criminal proceedings (i.e., that he is not a king or Putin-style strongman, despite his pretensions, and therefore not above the law); and
- these rulings effectively give Trump the cover he needs to get through yet another election cycle without having to release his tax returns.
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President Trump’s assertion that he enjoys absolute immunity while in office, allowing a New York prosecutor to pursue a subpoena of the president’s private and business financial records.
In a separate case, the court sent a fight over congressional subpoenas for the material back to lower courts because of ‘significant separation of powers concerns.’ …
In both cases, the justices ruled 7 to 2, with Trump nominees Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh joining the majorities. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented.
(The Washington Post, July 9, 2020)
Of course, The New York Times presaged — with its Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting last year — the web of financial fraud the New York prosecutor is bound to find. As it happens, though, I did the same years before in “Hackers Leak Trump’s Tax Returns…?” May 12, 2016:
__________
Trump has fueled his campaign with nothing but blather, bluster, and bravado about how his acquisition of ‘huge’ wealth makes him uniquely qualified to be president. To honor what little integrity remains in their profession, journalists should force Trump to prove it.
After all, by his own measure, his refusal to release his tax returns is rather like a doctor refusing to present his medical qualifications. Which, of course, is why doctors plaster their office walls with framed copies of all manner of licenses and degrees.
Trust me, if his tax returns showed that he is as wealthy and charitable as he claims, Trump would be distributing them like campaign flyers. But it speaks volumes that Dishonest Donald is failing the test for honesty, which Richard ‘I-am-not-a-crook’ Nixon set by releasing his tax returns. And it’s noteworthy that Nixon did so even while the IRS was auditing him.
Meanwhile, this is the same Trump who never refuses to dispel rumors about the size of his penis being much smaller than he boasts; so much so that he used the platform of a recent presidential debate to prove it — at least to his satisfaction. Specifically, he invited the audience to look at the size of his hands, which he raised for inspection. Never mind that his stubby fingers actually indicate that Illma Gore’s rendering of a peanut for his penis, which is on display at Maddox Gallery in London, is anatomically correct.
Trump has built his self-esteem so much on being far wealthier than he is, he’d sooner show how small his penis is than reveal what little wealth he has.
_________
No doubt these rulings will leave millions of Americans dissatisfied. But justice delayed in this case is not justice denied.
It might take a year or more for the lower courts to sort out the directives the Supreme Court handed down today. But it’s only a matter of time before Trump has to pay the piper for the cheating embedded in years, if not decades, of his tax returns.
So here’s to
- congressional investigators exposing him for perpetrating the greatest fraud in the history of politics (i.e., by pretending to be a ten-billion-dollar businessman to get elected president of the United States); and
- the New York prosecutor indicting “citizen Trump” (the minute his presidency ends) for cheating on his taxes in ways that must have even Leona Helmsley rolling over in her grave.
Recall that, during her famous tax evasion trial, one of hotelier Leona Helmsley’s employees damned her to prison when he testified that she routinely exclaimed:
We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.
(The New York Times, July 12, 1989)
The little people saw Helmsley hauled off to prison. If there’s any justice in this world, we will see Trump hauled off too. But, no matter the plea bargain he’s bound to strike, there’s no escaping this pyrrhic question then haunting him for the rest of his life:
- What price presidency?
And, trust me, he knows what looms. His lawyer is trying – with a straight face – to spin these rulings as a victory for him. But Trump is undermining and making a mockery of all that by reacting with self-pitying tweets, which only betray his consciousness of guilt:
Now the Supreme Court gives a delay ruling that they would never have given… for another President. This is about PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT. We catch the other side SPYING on my campaign, the biggest political crime and scandal in U.S. history, and NOTHING HAPPENS.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020
Incidentally, it could only have exacerbated his preternatural sense of victimization that New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio chose today to do this:
Work began Thursday morning on the massive Black Lives Matter mural in front of Trump Tower.
A stretch of Fifth Avenue between East 56th and 57th streets was closed to traffic as city Department of Transportation workers began measuring and stenciling the giant yellow letters onto the pavement with spray paint and tape just after 8 a.m.
(New York Post, July 9, 2020)
The slogan already menaces his view outside the White House in Washington, DC. All that remains is for a similar mural to adorn the streets leading up to his Mar-a-Lago hideaway in Florida.
Meanwhile, from Omarosa Manigault Newman (of the tell-all Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House) to John Bolton (of the tell-all In the Room Where It Happened), Trump’s boast about having a genius for hiring people has boomeranged time and again.
Except that every other occasion pales in comparison to the two justices he nominated to this Supreme Court voting against him in these two cases. Because today’s rulings mean that a Javert-like prosecutor will soon discover why Trump has been hiding his tax returns all these years … as if his life depended on it.
[Note: Is it just me, or do you get the impression that Trump lackeys like Attorney General William Barr, televangelist Jerry Falwell Jr., and Senator Lindsey Graham all think not only that he’s a king but that he’ll reign forever? Because only that explains them sacrificing every ounce of their ability, credibility, and integrity to serve and protect … Trump – the welfare of the country be damned.
I mean, what do they think will become of them after Trump gets his comeuppance…?]
Related commentaries:
tax returns… political divide… Leona Helmsley…
Black lives matter… John Bolton…
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