District Court Tosses Trump Suit to Protect Taxes

Steven D. Schwinn, University of Illinois Chicago John Marshall Law School

Judge Victor Marrero (S.D.N.Y.) today dismissed President Trump's lawsuit that sought to halt a state grand jury subpoena issued to Mazars USA for Trump organization financial documents, including the President's tax returns. We posted most recently here.

The ruling deals a blow to President Trump's efforts to protect his tax returns from disclosure, and to halt any state criminal process against him. But it may be temporary: the Second Circuit immediately stayed the ruling pending expedited review; and whatever the Second Circuit says, this case seems destined for the Supreme Court.

The district court ruled that President Trump's suit was barred by Younger abstention, and that his constitutional claim likely failed on the merits.

As to Younger abstention, which requires federal courts to abstain from intervening in pending state court proceedings under certain circumstances, the court said that the grand jury subpoena was part of a pending state criminal proceeding (despite a circuit split on the question), that the state proceeding implicates important state interests, and that the state proceeding affords President Trump plenty of opportunities to raise his constitutional claims. The court rejected the President's claims that the state process was in bad faith or merely designed to harass him, and that the case raised extraordinary circumstances.

As to the underlying merits, which the court addressed "so as to obviate a remand" on President Trump's motion for a preliminary injunction if the Second Circuit overrules the abstention holding, the court flatly rejected the President's claim of absolute presidential immunity from all state criminal processes. The court said that it "cannot square a vision of presidential immunity that would place the President above the law with the text of the Constitution, the historical record, the relevant case law, or even the DOJ Memos on which the President relies most heavily for support." The court, citing Clinton v. Jones, said that the Supreme Court would likely reject the President's absolute, categorical approach to immunity in favor of a functional approach that "take[s] account of various circumstances concerning the appropriateness of a claim of presidential immunity from judicial process relating to a criminal proceeding" and to balance the competing interests in working out the immunity question.

The case now goes to the Second Circuit on an expedited basis. Again: the Second Circuit stayed the district court's ruling, which means that President Trump's federal case challenging the state subpoena is still alive. Whatever happens at the Second Circuit, this case will almost surely go to the Supreme Court.