Judge tosses a Trump lawsuit to keep his taxes secret
October 7, 2019 in News by RBN Staff
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 03: U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions while departing the White House on October 03, 2019 in Washington, DC. Trump is scheduled to travel to Florida today before returning to Washington later this evening. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
source: www.politico.com
by KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN
A federal judge in New York City spiked President Donald Trump’s attempt to block a Manhattan prosecutor from obtaining his tax and financial records from the accounting firm Mazars, dismissing his “extraordinary” claim to be immune from criminal investigation.
In a 75-page ruling on Monday, Judge Victor Marrero, also issued a sharp rejection of longstanding Department of Justice opinions that say a president cannot be indicted or criminally prosecuted while in office, calling their conclusions “not warranted” or backed up by the authority of the courts.
Marrero said Trump’s claim of “absolute immunity” from criminal proceedings is counter to the intent of the framers of the Constitution, who rejected an executive with the limitless power of a monarch. Marrero described the president’s argument as “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.”
“The notion of … presidential immunity from judicial process that the President here invokes, unqualified and boundless in its reach described above, cuts against the grain of these Constitutional precedents,” wrote Marrero, an appointee of President Bill Clinton in 1999.
