Trump Says a Sitting President Can't Be Investigated. Will the Supreme Court Tell Him He's Wrong? | Opinion

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-sitting-president-cant-investigated-will-supreme-court-tell-him-hes-wrong-1504211

 

The rules of federal governance are being dramatically reconceived under the presidency of Donald Trump. The president's traditional relationship with federal agencies, with Congress and with state governments are all being called into question. At no time, however, in the past three and a half years has the radical nature of the "Constitution according to Trump" been more apparent than on Tuesday, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases addressing whether the Constitution permits either Congress or a state district attorney to subpoena the president's tax returns from his accountants, Mazars.

What would it mean for the Supreme Court to side with Trump in the case of congressional subpoenas? Congress would effectively lose the ability to investigate the president. They could try to investigate him, but since they could not subpoena him or any of his financial records, even from third parties, such an investigation would be futile. This is the same theory, by the way, that White House lawyers used in the D.C. Circuit to argue that former White House Counsel Don McGahn could not be forced to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in response to its subpoena issued during the impeachment proceedings. Consider how differently those proceedings might have gone had the president not obstructed his testimony.