Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP

Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the United States House of Representatives subpoenas to obtain the tax returns of President Donald Trump, which Trump has litigated to prevent but which had been cleared by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In a 7–2 decision issued in July 2020, the Supreme Court vacated the Circuit Court's decision, asserting that the court had not properly assessed the separation of powers between Congress and the President, and remanded the case for review with a set of considerations to evaluate the worthiness of the subpoena request.

Background
In April 2019, three committees of the U. S. House of Representatives issued four subpoenas seeking the financial records of President Trump, his children, and affiliated businesses. The House Committee on Financial Services's subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capital One sought records related to foreign transactions, business statements, debt schedules, statements of net worth, tax returns, and suspicious activity identified by that Bank. The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's subpoena to Deutsche Bank was for the same information.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform issued a subpoena to Trump's personal accounting firm, Mazars USA, LLP, demanding financial information pertaining to Trump and several affiliated businesses. Although each of the committees sought overlapping sets of financial documents, each supplied different justifications for the requests, explaining that the information would help guide legislative reform in areas ranging from moneylaundering and terrorism to foreign involvement in U. S. elections. The President sued, and the subpoena was blocked while the case wound its way through the courts, losing in district court and on appeal.

On November 18, 2019, the Supreme Court agreed to continue the block for a few days, ordering the House Counsel to submit a rebuttal by November 21, which it did. In seeking a rapid subpoena ruling, House general counsel Douglas Letter wrote, "The president certainly has no right to dictate the timetable by which third parties provide information that could potentially be relevant to that inquiry."

Mazars, the target of the subpoena, stated that it was willing to comply with the subpoena. Trump's lawsuit against Mazars, brought in his personal capacity, delayed Mazars' response. Legal scholar Marty Lederman has described the Mazars case as more important than the Trump v. Vance case. Lederman describes Trump's argument&mdash;that Congress entirely lacks "constitutional authority to investigate a sitting President's possible conflicts of interest and violations of law"&mdash;as an "alarming" assertion that, "would, if credited, be a radical departure from our constitutional history and tradition."

D.C. Circuit
Circuit Judge David S. Tatel wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by Circuit Judge Patricia Millett. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao dissented, insisting that the impeachment power is the only legitimate method for such congressional investigations.

On November 13, 2019, the D.C. Circuit denied the Trump administration's petition for an en banc rehearing. Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao, and Karen Henderson dissented from the denial of rehearing.

Supreme Court
The question facing the Supreme Court is whether the U.S. House of Representatives has the authority to issue subpoenas to obtain the private financial records of the president and his businesses.

On November 25, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States granted a stay of the D.C. Circuit's ruling extending the time for the appealing party (Trump) to file a petition for a writ of certiorari, asking the Court to hear the case. Trump's legal team filed the petition on December 5, 2019, and on December 13, 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari and consolidated the case with Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG. The Supreme Court also granted ceriorari for Trump v. Vance, a similar challenge related to subpoenas for Trump's tax records but from the Manhattan District Attorney's office in relation to the ongoing investigation over the Stormy Daniels scandal.

Oral arguments were originally scheduled to take place on March 31, 2020, but two weeks before the arguments were to take place, the Supreme Court postponed arguments in response to the coronavirus pandemic and waited one month to announce the rescheduled date. In April 2020, the Supreme Court said that oral argument in the Mazars case and other cases would be heard by telephone. Consolidated oral arguments for Trump v. Mazars and Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG, as well as Trump v. Vance, were heard on May 12. In arguing against the need for subpoenas for tax returns, Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall repeatedly cited that they presented "dangers of harassing and distracting and undermining the President".

The Court issued its ruling on July 9, 2020. In the 7–2 decision, the Court vacated the decision of the D.C. Circuit that granted the subpoena and remanded the case for further review. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority decision joined by all but Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. In the decision, Roberts wrote that the Circuit Court had not taken full account of the separation of powers in their decision, stating that neither the Congressional nor Presidential argument was wholly sound. Roberts wrote, "The standards proposed by the president and the solicitor general — if applied outside the context of privileged information — would risk seriously impeding Congress in carrying out its responsibilities...The House's approach fails to take adequate account of the significant separation of powers issues raised by congressional subpoenas for the president's information. Far from accounting for separation of powers concerns, the House's approach aggravates them by leaving essentially no limits on the congressional power to subpoena the president's personal records. Any personal paper possessed by a president could potentially 'relate to' a conceivable subject of legislation, for Congress has broad legislative powers that touch a vast number of subjects." The Chief Justice also noted that conflicts between Congress and the Executive regarding subpoena were resolved in the past by the two political branches of the U.S. federal government through the use of negotiation and compromise and without involvement by the Supreme Court. Roberts recognized that the executive privilege is designed to safeguard presidential decision-making, but he also noted that the U.S. President does not have blanket immunity from records requests, because the protection caused by executive privilege “should not be transplanted root and branch to cases involving nonprivileged, private information, which by definition does not implicate sensitive Executive Branch deliberations.”

Congressional subpoenas which are directed at the U.S. President and his personal papers demand careful scrutiny according to Chief Justice John Roberts, “for they stem from a rival political branch that has an ongoing relationship with the president and incentives to use subpoenas for institutional advantage.” In sending the case back to review, Roberts gave the court four considerations to determine whether the subpoenas were appropriate:
 * 1) Whether the legislative request warrants the involvement of the President, and if other sources can reasonably provide Congress the same information;
 * 2) Whether the subpoena is no broader than reasonably necessary to support the legislative objective;
 * 3) Whether the nature of evidence that is requested by the subpoena will advance a valid legislative purpose; and
 * 4) Whether the subpoena burdens the President and may be a result from partisan politics.

Impact
The Supreme Court's decision in Mazars was generally considered favorable towards Trump from a political standpoint, even though the rulings in both Mazars and the associated Vance case could allow the tax returns to be subpoenaed. The ruling did acknowledge that Congress has power to subpoena the President and his papers as part of the legislative process, but set limits to these requests, which could be challenged by the President and still prevent release of Trump's taxes. With the challenges to the House subpoenas being returned to the Circuit Court for review based on the four considerations set out by Roberts, these were unlikely to be resolved by the November 2020 presidential election. Trump's political opponents had hoped to have used the tax returns as part of their strategy in challenging the incumbent in the campaign prior to the election. Further, Congressional subpoenas related to this case will expire with the end of the 116th Congress at the start of 2021.

The New York Times, through unnamed sources, reported on over two decades of tax information from Trump on September 27, 2020. While the information created a significant discourse over the findings, it is not expected to impact Mazars or the New York Vance case.