Court won't halt turnover of Trump's tax records
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a significant defeat for former President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to step in to halt the turnover of his tax records to a New York state prosecutor.
The court's action is the apparent culmination of a lengthy legal battle that had already reached the high court once before.
Trump's tax records are not supposed to become public as part of prosecutors' criminal investigation, but the high court's action is a blow to Trump because he has long fought on so many fronts to keep his tax records shielded from view. The ongoing investigation that the records are part of could also become an issue for Trump in his life after the presidency.
In a statement, Trump blasted prosecutors and said the "Supreme Court never should have let this 'fishing expedition' happen, but they did." The Republican claimed the investigation is politically motivated by Democrats in "a totally Democrat location, New York City and State." And he said he would "fight on" and that "We will win!"
The Supreme Court waited months to act in the case. The last of the written briefs in the case was filed Oct. 19. But a court that includes three Trump appointees waited through the election, Trump's challenge to his defeat and a month after Trump left office before issuing its order.
The court offered no explanation for the delay, and the legal issue before the justices did not involve whether Trump was due any special deference because he was president.
The court's order is a win for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who has been seeking Trump's tax records since 2019 as part of an investigation. Vance, a Democrat, had subpoenaed the records from the Mazars accounting firm that has long done work for Trump and his businesses. Mazars has said it would comply with the subpoena, but Trump sued to block the records' release.
Vance's office had said it would be free to enforce the subpoena and obtain the records in the event the Supreme Court declined to step in and halt the records' turnover, but it was unclear when that might happen. In a three-word statement Monday, Vance said only: "The work continues."
The records Vance has been after are more than eight years of Trump's personal and corporate tax records. Vance has disclosed little about what prompted him to seek them. In one court filing last year, however, prosecutors said they were justified in demanding the records because of public reports of "possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization."
Part of the probe involves payments to two women — porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal — to keep them quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign about alleged extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.
In July, the justices in a 7-2 ruling rejected Trump's argument that the president is immune from investigation while he holds office or that a prosecutor must show a greater need than normal to obtain the tax records.
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, whom Trump nominated to the high court, joined that decision. It was issued before Trump's third nominee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, replaced the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the court.
As part of its July decision, the high court returned the Vance case and a similar case involving records sought by Congress to lower courts. And the court prevented the records from being turned over while the cases proceeded.
Since the high court's ruling, in the Vance case, Trump's attorneys made additional arguments that his tax records should not be turned over, but they lost again in federal court in New York and on appeal. It was those rulings that Trump had sought to put on hold.
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Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
Election challenge cases rejected
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a handful of cases related to the 2020 election, including disputes from Pennsylvania that had deeply divided the justices just before the election.
The cases the justices rejected involved election challenges filed by former President Donald Trump and his allies in five states President Joe Biden won: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Other than two Pennsylvania disputes, the justices' decision not to hear the cases was unsurprising but ends months of legal wrangling. The court had previously taken no action in those cases and in January had turned away pleas that the cases be fast-tracked, again suggesting the justices were not interested in hearing them.
Some of the justices, however, had strong feelings about the court's decision not to hear two cases from Pennsylvania that had been particularly contentious in the battleground state. The cases involved an appeal of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision requiring election officials to receive and count mailed-in ballots that arrived up to three days after the election. Three of the nine justices said they would have heard the case, which would not have affected the election's outcome.
Justice Clarence Thomas called the cases an "ideal opportunity" to address an important question whether state lawmakers or state courts get the last word about the manner in which federal elections are carried out. And he called it "befuddling" and "inexplicable" that his colleagues were declining to weigh in.
"We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence," he wrote.
Thomas cited the expansion of mail-in voting as another reason to take the case and said "fraud is more prevalent with mail-in ballots." Trump had made claims of massive fraud in the vastly expanded use of mailed in ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic, but courts found no evidence to substantiate those claims.
Pennsylvania lawmakers, for their part, made changes to the state's election laws in response to the pandemic but left in place a Nov. 3 deadline to receive absentee ballots. Democrats sued, and Pennsylvania's highest court cited the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and United States Postal Service delays in extending the deadline for mailed-in ballots to be received.
Republicans had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put that extension on hold ahead of the election. But in October, following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and before Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to her seat, the justices split 4-4 over doing so, keeping the three-day extension for receiving ballots in place.
In practice, however, because of the ongoing lawsuit, those late-arriving ballots were separated out and have not yet been counted. The state has said that ultimately, fewer than 10,000 ballots were received during those three days. That small number of ballots would not have altered the outcome of the presidential election in the state, which former President Donald Trump lost by some 80,000 votes.
Pennsylvania officials had argued that the case was moot because the state's election results had already been certified. Republicans argued the justices should take the case to provide guidance for future elections. In addition to Thomas, two other justices — Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — agreed.
Those three justices and Justice Brett Kavanaugh had been the four justices who previously would have put the ballot deadline extension on hold. As is typical, neither Kavanaugh nor Barrett, each of whom might have provided a fourth vote needed for the court to take the case, wrote to explain why they declined to hear the case.
"A decision in these cases would not have any implications regarding the 2020 election...But a decision would provide invaluable guidance for future elections," Alito wrote. He said the cases "call out for review."
Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, wrote on Twitter after the court's action: "It's time to move on."
Court won't revive porn star's defamation suit
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from porn star Stormy Daniels, who sought to revive a defamation lawsuit she filed against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not comment in leaving in place a lower court ruling dismissing the case.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and was paid $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement days before the 2016 presidential election. She sued him for defamation after he dismissed her claims of being threatened to keep quiet about the tryst as a "total con job."
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2018 and ordered Daniels to pay nearly $300,000 in attorneys' fees.
