唐纳德·特朗普总统最小心翼翼保守的秘密——他的财务记录，包括纳税申报单——可能会对选民隐瞒，直到下次选举结束。
这仅仅是美国最高法院本月早些时候的一个可能结果，即审理三起案件，涉及五份传票，寻求这些记录。尽管大法官们将在三月听取辩论，并在明年六月前进行裁决——在我们投票前几个月——但他们是否会下令快速、干净地移交总统的王冠似乎越来越令人怀疑。
相反，最高法院审查这些案件的决定表明，关于国会调查权的92年的法律先例可能需要彻底改革。确切地说，将会出现什么是任何人的猜测，除了它将是重大的。
由曼哈顿的三个国会委员会和一个州大陪审团发出的传票，寻求特朗普、他的三个大孩子——小唐纳德、伊万卡和埃里克——特朗普组织和一个密集的附属商业实体的记录。
自1927年法院判决沃伦·哈定政府茶壶圆顶丑闻案以来，这一领域的法律相当明确。国会有广泛的调查余地来告知其立法职能。只要它能阐明所寻求信息的“立法目的”，法院就不会猜测其动机。
但是，尽管国会传票曾经很少，但自20世纪70年代以来，它们的使用一直在加速。自1月份控制众议院以来，民主党已经要求的文件来自100多个特朗普盟友或企业。对此，特朗普进行了阻挠。“我们在与所有传票抗争，”他去年4月发誓说。
在审理这些案件时，法院似乎准备至少引导一个方向的纠正。
乔治梅森大学沙尔公共政策和政府学院院长马克·罗塞尔是总统、国会和司法机构之间调查冲突的专家，他说:“过去关于文件和证词的争议通常通过相互妥协和妥协的过程来解决。”。“如果没有调解程序，事情会变得更加棘手——不管是谁的错。最高法院很可能会试图制定一项司法决议，对传票权力加以限制，并要求实际表明需要——远不止是捕鱼探险。”
下级法院认为这些案件相当简单。
因为传票只寻求个人记录，而不是官方文件，所以没有提出棘手的“行政特权”问题。此外，由于这些传票是针对特朗普的会计师和银行，而不是直接针对特朗普，因此不需要他采取任何行动——不会分散他的公务注意力。
政党路线
其中两起案件涉及对特朗普的会计师事务所马扎美国公司的传票，另一起案件涉及对他的银行德意志银行和第一资本的传票。(会计师事务所和银行都没有反对传票，但特朗普提出了三项联邦诉讼，一项在华盛顿，两项在纽约，以阻止这些机构遵守传票。)
所有三名地区法官都对特朗普不利，所有三个上诉法院都迅速予以肯定。总共有12名联邦法官参加，9人投票反对特朗普。上诉法院的裁决是由三名杰出的巡回法官撰写的，他们中间有92年的法官经验。
然而，在当今政治两极化的世界中，计算下级法院的裁决并不是预测最高法院结果的好方法。九名反对特朗普的法官中有八名是民主党任命的，而投票支持他的三名法官都是共和党任命的。(另外两名共和党上诉法院法官也表示不同意这些裁决，他们要求重新考虑涉及国会传唤马扎尔的案件，但没有成功。)
即使除了政治忠诚，下级法院的判决不一定能预测高等法院的结果还有另一个原因。下级法院法官受最高法院先例的约束，而最高法院法官不受约束。
妥协？
法院目前审理的三起传票案件相互提出了不同的问题。因此，他们的结果可能不同，法官之间有妥协的余地。
第一个案件涉及已故的以利亚·卡明斯(Elijah Cummings)，当时的众议院监督和改革委员会主席，今年4月向马扎尔发出传票。除其他事项外，它还寻求“所有财务状况报表、年度报表、定期财务报告和独立审计员报告”，由马扎为特朗普及其业务编制或审查。如果马扎尔用特朗普的纳税申报单准备文件——目前还不知道——马扎尔也必须交出这些文件。(还有另一张众议院传票——由理查德·尼尔主席的筹款委员会直接向财政部发出——专门寻求特朗普的纳税申报单。但是关于传票的诉讼仍然在华盛顿的联邦地方法院陷入僵局，而且似乎不太可能在选举前解决。)
卡明斯传唤马扎斯的部分原因是，2018年5月，政府道德办公室发现候选人特朗普提交了一份不准确的道德披露声明。它忽略了他偿还私人律师迈克尔·科恩支付给成人电影女演员斯托米·丹尼尔斯的“封口费”的义务。(丹尼尔斯说她和特朗普有婚外情，特朗普否认了这一点。)后来，科恩今年2月在卡明斯委员会作证时，声称特朗普经常“在达到目的时夸大其总资产”，并“缩减资产以降低房地产税”
卡明斯主席在一份备忘录中解释说，在要求他的委员会批准对马扎尔的传票时，委员会需要告知自己，除其他事项外，它可能会颁布未决的和潜在的道德法规，以加强总统的披露义务。
对于华盛顿特区的地区法院和上诉法院来说，传票的要求似乎并不引人注目...用具有里程碑意义的1927年最高法院判例的概括来说，麦克格莱恩诉道格蒂。随后高等法院的一项裁决还规定，“只要国会按照宪法权力行事，司法机构就无权根据刺激宪法权力的动机进行干预。”
救援行动
但是上诉委员会中有一个重要的反对声音。它属于巡回法官妮欧米·拉奥，一位46岁的联邦主义者协会的宠儿，特朗普在传票发出前一个月任命他为法官。(她备受争议的任命以53票对46票获得参议院通过。)
拉奥专注于卡明斯主席给委员会的备忘录中的一个特殊条款，列出了传票的理由。卡明斯在那里明确承认，他也想弄清楚“总统在任职之前和任职期间是否有非法行为”
拉奥随后画出了一条明线，如果被最高法院采纳，将标志着与现有做法的彻底改变。“除非通过弹劾，否则国会不能调查对总统的非法行为指控，”她写道。她坚持认为，事实就是如此，即使“调查也有立法目的”(尽管几个月后国会确实开始了一项正式的弹劾调查，以研究不相关的问题——特朗普要求乌克兰总统沃洛迪米尔·泽伦斯基给予的“支持”——但法院现在收到的传票的有效性可能不会受到这一事态发展的影响。)
撰写多数决案的克林顿任命的法官大卫·泰特拒绝了拉奥的推理。“异议者没有引用宪法或判例法中的任何内容——也没有任何内容——迫使国会在发现潜在非法性的第一个迹象时放弃其立法角色，只限于弹劾程序。”
他抗议道，拉奥的做法“会削弱立法部门”，迫使国会要么“启动严肃而沉重的弹劾程序，要么放弃任何支持潜在立法的调查。”她的解释将迫使立法调查“随时停止”。。。犯罪或不法行为被披露。”
法院审理的第二个案件涉及向德意志银行和第一资本发出的三份传票。这些是由众议院金融服务委员会(传唤两家机构)和众议院常设情报特别委员会(仅传唤德意志银行)发布的。
此案与马扎尔案的主要区别在于，金融和情报委员会主席没有明确承认他们在寻找犯罪不当行为的证据。因此，拉奥法官的论点——传票只能作为正式召集的弹劾调查的一部分发出——是不成立的。
杠杆作用？
德意志银行和资本一号传票的公开目的更加温和。金融委员会主席玛克辛·沃特斯说，她正在调查与“洗钱计划”有关的潜在立法，而情报主席亚当·希夫说，他的委员会正在调查俄罗斯影响美国选举的行动。
例如，希夫想弄清楚，“是否有任何外国演员试图对唐纳德·特朗普、他的家人、他的企业或他的合伙人妥协或持有财务或其他方面的杠杆。”(The纽约时报希夫指出，特朗普曾报道称，在过去20年里，特朗普从德意志银行借了20多亿美元，而当时没有其他银行会借钱给他。)
同样，下级法院的法官认为这些传票没有什么不妥，尽管他们承认这些传票相当宽泛。例如，德意志银行的报告寻求“对国内或国际账户存款、取款和转账的任何总结或分析”传票通常要求至少可以追溯到2010年的文件，对于几类文件根本没有时间限制。
同样，一名共和党任命的人表示反对。
乔治·布什选区巡回法官黛布拉·安·利文斯顿写道:“这里的立法传票令人深感不安。”。她表示担心，“考虑不周的”国会调查可能导致“对私生活的无情曝光”，并加深人们对立法委员会“不是参与立法，而是参与反对派研究”的看法
因此，利文斯顿会将案件发回下级法院，并要求各委员会对所寻求的每一类文件显示更具体的需要。
2019年5月22日，DC华盛顿，财政部长史蒂文·穆努钦在国会众议院金融服务委员会作证。委员会听取了国务卿关于国际金融体系状况和唐纳德·特朗普总统纳税申报表的证词。
无声夜
法院审理的第三个案件仍然提出不同的问题。它涉及州大陪审团传票，而不是国会传票。
这张传票是在8月底发出的，也是发给马扎尔的，它源于纽约州地方检察官小塞鲁斯·万斯发起的一项刑事调查。据报道，万斯的调查围绕着代表特朗普向女演员丹尼尔斯和第二个女人——前《花花公子》模特凯伦·麦克道戈支付的“封口费”，后者也曾表示她与特朗普有染。(特朗普也否认了那件事。)
特朗普在阻止万斯大陪审团传票的诉讼中声称，他在任期间绝对不受刑事诉讼的所有阶段影响，包括起诉前调查。在10月上诉法院的口头辩论中，特朗普的律师震惊的观察者声称如果特朗普总统在第五大道开枪打人，地方当局将无能为力。
根据纽约美国上诉法院首席法官罗伯特·卡茨曼(Robert Katzmann)上月撰写的一致裁决，尽管每个人都承认特朗普在任期间可能无法被起诉，但特朗普对起诉前豁免权的全面主张完全违背了最高法院的先例。
具体来说，特朗普的立场与历史上最著名的传票案件背道而驰。1974年，最高法院一致命令尼克松总统交出他椭圆形办公室的录音带，以回应联邦大陪审团的传票——这一事件导致他辞职。2000年，司法部法律顾问办公室还特别认为，大陪审团可以在总统任期内适当地“收集证据”，即使在总统离任前它不能发出起诉书。
此外，卡茨曼指出，大陪审团对特朗普纳税申报单的要求甚至不是特别具有侵犯性。他在脚注中说，前六任总统，可以追溯到吉米·卡特，都是自愿向公众披露他们的。
不满意
尽管大陪审团案件可能是法院审理的三个案件中最简单的一个，为一致确认提供了最强有力的前景，但它不会为选民提供任何见解。即使马扎尔将特朗普的纳税申报单交给地方检察官万斯，这些申报单仍将是大陪审团的秘密，除非它们成为起诉的对象——这在特朗普离任之前也不会发生。
明确地说，一些观察家仍然乐观地认为，最高法院将遵循其先例，在这些案件中执行国会传票。他们希望今天分歧严重的最高法院将在另一项超越性的裁决中走到一起美国诉尼克松在1974年或克林顿诉琼斯案1998年，一致重申没有人可以凌驾于法律之上。(在琼斯一案中，法院认为克林顿总统在任期间也不能免于回应葆拉·琼斯的民事发现请求。)
进步宪法问责中心的首席法律顾问布里安·戈罗德说:“事实上，有朝一日政治局面可能会改变，这应该为就支持众议院的法院达成共识提供依据。”。“接受总统的观点将削弱国会的监督权力，而这一权力对我们国家的制衡体系至关重要，并将使国会作为一个机构更难开展工作，无论哪个政党占多数。”
然而，下面的裁决表明，不同党派的法官从完全不同的角度看待这些案件。无论如何，即使是最高法院自由派的一些法官也可能会担心，一个怀恨在心的共和党国会主席或一个流氓共和党州检察官有朝一日可能会对未来的民主党总统发出广泛的、侵入性的传票。
似乎可以肯定的是，随着时间的推移，大陪审团、记者、传记作者和历史学家都会仔细研究特朗普的财务记录，包括他的纳税申报单。
但不是选民——至少在2020年11月3日之前不是。
DONALD TRUMP'S FINANCES: WILL VOTERS EVER KNOW THE TRUTH?
President Donald Trump's most jealously guarded secrets—his financial records, including tax returns—will probably remain hidden from voters until after the next election.
That's just one likely consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court's red-letter decision earlier this month to hear three cases, involving five subpoenas, seeking those records. Though the Justices will hear arguments in March and rule by next June—several months before we go to the polls—it seems increasingly doubtful that they will order a quick, clean turnover of the president's crown jewels.
Rather, the Court's decision to review these cases signals that ninety-two years of legal precedent concerning the investigative powers of Congress may be due for an overhaul. Precisely what will emerge is anyone's guess, except that it will be momentous.
The subpoenas, issued by three Congressional committees and a state grand jury in Manhattan, seek the records of Trump, his three oldest children—Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric—The Trump Organization and a dense tangle of affiliated business entities.
Since 1927, when the Court decided a case stemming from the Teapot Dome scandal of the Warren Harding Administration, the law in this area has been fairly clear. Congress has had broad investigative leeway to inform its legislative functions. So long as it could articulate a "legislative purpose" for the information sought, courts would not second-guess its motives.
But while Congressional subpoenas were once rare, their use has been accelerating since the 1970s. Since taking control of the House in January, Democrats have demanded documents from more than 100 Trump allies or businesses. In response, Trump has stonewalled. "We're fighting all the subpoenas," he vowed last April.
In taking these cases, the Court looks poised to steer, at the very least, a course correction.
"Disputes over documents and testimony in the past usually got resolved through a process of mutual accommodation and compromise," says Mark Rozell, the Dean of the Schar School of Public Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an expert on investigative clashes between the President, Congress, and the judiciary. "Matters get trickier when there is no accommodation process—regardless of who is at fault for that. The Court may very well be tempted to fashion a judicial resolution that puts constraints around the subpoena power and requires some actual showing of need—of something much more than a fishing expedition."
The lower courts saw these cases as pretty simple.
Because the subpoenas sought only personal records, and not official documents, they raised no thorny "executive privilege" issues. In addition, since these subpoenas were directed to Trump's accountants and banks, rather than to Trump directly, they required no action on his part—occasioning no distraction from his official duties.
PARTY LINES
Two of the cases involve subpoenas to Mazars USA, Trump's accounting firm, while the other involves subpoenas to his banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One. (Neither the accounting firm nor banks are fighting the subpoenas, but Trump filed three federal suits, one in Washington and two in New York, to block those institutions from complying.)
All three district judges ruled against Trump, and all three appeals courts promptly affirmed. In total, twelve federal judges took part, with nine voting against Trump. The appeals court rulings were authored by three eminent circuit judges with, between them, 92 years of experience on the bench.
Still, in today's politically polarized world, counting lower court rulings is a poor way to predict Supreme Court outcomes. Eight of the nine judges who ruled against Trump were appointed by Democrats, while all three who voted for him were Republican-appointees. (Two additional Republican appeals court judges also voiced disagreement with the rulings by requesting, unsuccessfully, reconsideration of the case involving the Congressional subpoena to Mazars.)
Even apart from political allegiances, there's another reason lower court decisions don't necessarily predict High Court outcomes. Lower court judges are bound by Supreme Court precedent, while Supreme Court justices are not.
COMPROMISE?
The trio of subpoena cases now before the Court present distinct issues from one another. Accordingly, their outcomes may vary, and there is room for compromise among the justices.
The first case involves a subpoena that the late Elijah Cummings, then chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, issued to Mazars this past April. It seeks, among other things, "all statements of financial condition, annual statements, periodic financial reports, and independent auditors' reports" prepared or reviewed by Mazars for Trump and his businesses. If Mazars used Trump's tax returns to prepare documents—which is, as yet, unknown—Mazars would have to turn those over, too. (Still another House subpoena—issued by the Chairman Richard Neal's Ways and Means Committee directly to the Treasury Department—specifically seeks Trump's tax returns. But litigation over that subpoena is still bogged down in a federal district court in Washington, and seems unlikely to be resolved before the election.)
Cummings' subpoena to Mazars was prompted, in part, when the Office of Government Ethics, in May 2018, found that candidate Trump had filed an inaccurate ethics disclosure statement. It omitted his obligation to reimburse his private attorney, Michael Cohen, for "hush money" payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. (Daniels says she had an affair with Trump, which he has denied.) Later, when Cohen testified before Cummings' committee this past February, he alleged that Trump regularly "inflated his total assets when it served his purposes" and "deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes."
In asking his committee to approve the subpoena to Mazars, Chairman Cummings explained in a memo that the committee needed to inform itself, among other things, about pending and potential ethics legislation it might enact to beef up Presidential disclosure obligations.
The subpoena's demands seemed quite unremarkable to both the district and appellate courts in Washington, D.C. The materials related to a "subject ... on which legislation could be had," in the broad words of the landmark 1927 Supreme Court precedent, McGrain v. Daugherty. A subsequent High Court ruling also dictated that "so long as Congress acts in pursuance of a Constitutional power, the Judiciary lacks authority to intervene on the basis of the motives that spurred that power."
RAO TO THE RESCUE
But there was an important dissenting voice on the appeals panel. It belonged to Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, a 46-year-old Federalist Society favorite whom Trump appointed to the bench in March, just a month before the subpoena was issued. (Her bitterly contested appointment was approved by the Senate on a party-line vote, 53-46.)
Rao homed in on a particular clause from chairman Cummings' memo to his committee, laying out the reasons for the subpoena. There Cummings had specifically admitted that he also wanted to find out "whether the President may have engaged in illegal conduct before and during his tenure in office."
Rao then drew a bright-line distinction that, if adopted by the Supreme Court, would mark a radical change from existing practice. "Allegations of illegal conduct against the president cannot be investigated by Congress except through impeachment," she wrote. This was so, she insisted, even if "the investigation also has a legislative purpose." (Although Congress did, months later, start a formal impeachment inquiry to study unrelated matters—the "favor" Trump asked of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy—the validity of the subpoenas now before the Court will probably be unaffected by that development.)
Judge David Tatel, the Clinton appointee who wrote the majority decision, rejected Rao's reasoning. "The dissent cites nothing in the Constitution or case law—and there is nothing—that compels Congress to abandon its legislative role at the first scent of potential illegality and confine itself exclusively to the impeachment process."
Rao's approach, he protested, "would enfeeble the legislative branch," forcing Congress either "to initiate the grave and weighty process of impeachment or forgo any investigation in support of potential legislation." Her interpretation would force legislative inquiries to "grind to a halt whenever . . . crime or wrongdoing is disclosed."
The second case before the Court involves three subpoenas issued to Deutsche Bank and Capital One. These were issued by the House Financial Services Committee (which subpoenaed both institutions) and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (which subpoenaed only Deutsche Bank).
This main difference between this case and the Mazars case is that the Finance and Intelligence committee chairs did not explicitly admit that they were seeking evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Thus, Judge Rao's argument—that the subpoena could only be issued as part of a formally convened impeachment inquiry—was unavailable.
LEVERAGE?
The stated purposes for the Deutsche Bank and Capital One subpoenas were more benign. Chairwoman Maxine Waters, of the Finance committee, said she was investigating potential legislation relating to "money-laundering schemes," while Intelligence chair Adam Schiff said his committee was pursuing its inquiry into Russia's operations to influence American elections.
Schiff wanted to find out, for instance, "whether any foreign actor has sought to compromise or holds leverage, financial or otherwise, over Donald Trump, his family, his business, or his associates." (The New York Times had reported, as Schiff noted, that over the past two decades Trump had borrowed more than $2 billion from Deutsche Bank at a time when no other bank would lend to him.)
Again, the lower court judges saw nothing amiss with these subpoenas, though they admitted that they were quite broad. The ones to Deutsche Bank, for instance, sought "any summary or analysis of domestic or international account deposits, withdrawals, and transfers." The subpoenas generally demanded documents dating back to at least 2010, and for a few categories of documents there was no time limit at all.
Again, a Republican-appointee dissented.
"The legislative subpoenas here are deeply troubling," wrote Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston, a George W. Bush selection. She expressed concern that "ill-conceived" Congressional inquiries could lead to "ruthless exposure of private lives" and fuel perceptions that legislative committees were "engaged, not in legislating, but in opposition research."
Accordingly, Livingston would have sent the case back to the lower courts and required the committees to show much more specific need for each category of document sought.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies during a House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill May 22, 2019 in Washington, DC. The committee heard testimony from the Secretary on the State of the International Financial System, and President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
HUSH
The third case before the Court presents different issues still. It involves a state grand jury subpoena, rather than a Congressional subpoena.
This subpoena, issued in late August and also directed to Mazars, stems from a criminal inquiry opened by Cyrus Vance, Jr., the District Attorney for New York County. Vance's inquiry reportedly revolves around the "hush money" payments made on Trump's behalf to actress Daniels and a second woman, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who has also said she had an affair with Trump. (Trump has denied that affair, too.)
In his suit to block Vance's grand jury subpoena, Trump claims that he is absolutely immune from all stages of criminal process while in office, including pre-indictment investigation. During oral argument before the appeals court in October, Trump's lawyer stunned observers by arguing that if President Trump shot someone on Fifth Avenue, local authorities would be powerless to act.
Though everyone acknowledges that Trump probably cannot be indicted while in office, Trump's sweeping claim to pre-indictment immunity is squarely contrary to Supreme Court precedent, according to the unanimous ruling written last month by Chief Judge Robert Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York.
Specifically, Trump's position runs counter to the most famous subpoena case in history. In 1974 the Supreme Court unanimously ordered President Nixon to turn over his Oval Office tape recordings in response to a federal grand jury subpoena—the event that led to his resignation. In 2000, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel also specifically opined that a grand jury could properly "gather evidence" throughout a President's term, even though it couldn't issue an indictment until he left office.
Furthermore, Katzmann noted, the grand jury's request for Trump's tax returns was not even particularly invasive. The last six Presidents, dating back to Jimmy Carter, all disclosed theirs to the public voluntarily, he observed in a footnote.
NO SATISFACTION
While the grand jury case may be the simplest of the three before the Court, offering the strongest prospects for unanimous affirmance, it will not furnish voters with any insights. Even if Mazars turns over Trump's tax returns to District Attorney Vance, they will remain grand jury secrets unless and until they become the subject of an indictment—which, again, cannot happen until Trump leaves office.
To be clear, some observers remain optimistic that the Supreme Court will follow its precedents and enforce the Congressional subpoenas in these cases. They hold out hope that today's bitterly divided Supreme Court will come together in another transcendant ruling comparable to United States v. Nixon in 1974 or Clinton v. Jones in 1998, unanimously reaffirming that no man is above the law. (In Jones, the Court held that President Clinton was not immune from responding to Paula Jones' civil discovery requests while in office.)
"The fact that the political tables could one day be turned should provide grounds for consensus on the Court in support of the House," says Brianne Gorod, chief counsel of the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center. "Accepting the president's arguments would undermine Congress's oversight authority, which is critical to our nation's system of checks and balances, and would make it more difficult for Congress as an institution to do its job, no matter which political party holds a majority."
Still, the rulings below suggest that judges of different parties see these cases through radically different lenses. In any case, even some justices in the Court's liberal faction may have concerns about the broad, invasive subpoenas that a vindictive Republican Congressional chairman or a rogue Republican state prosecutor might one day fashion for some future Democratic president.
It seems certain that, in time, grand jurors, journalists, biographers, and historians will all pore over Trump's financial records, including his tax returns.
But not voters—at least not before November 3, 2020.
