The Court Got the Trump Subpoena Cases Exactly Backward
On the last day of its 2019 term, the Supreme Court decided two cases about the degree to which President Donald Trump’s personal financial records are subject to subpoena by two different investigating bodies. In Trump v. Vance, the Court rejected the president’s claim that he is immune from state grand-jury subpoenas while in office, and even rejected the contention that such subpoenas must meet a higher standard than those issued to ordinary citizens.
, by contrast, concerned subpoenas issued by several congressional committees. There, the Court likewise rejected the view advanced by President Trump, which would have applied the established test for executive-privilege cases even though the documents in question are not privileged. But the Court also said that these congressional subpoenas raise genuine separation-of-powers concerns, which the lower courts had not taken seriously enough. Thus the Court sent back to the lower courts for consideration under a new standard, one
