Another day, another defeat in the courts for Donald Trump, this time around the question of whether his accounting firm has to turn over 8 years of tax returns for Trump individually and his business. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his arguments (and those of the DOJ on his behalf) and ordered the tax returns to be turned over to Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance.
This was the case where Trump argued that he enjoys "absolute immunity" while in office, an argument the lower court called "repugnant to the nation's governmental structure and constitutional values."
The 3-judge panel declined to rule on that issue at all, ruling instead that Mazars, Inc was subpoenaed for the documents, not Donald Trump, and therefore they don't even have to address that argument.
“We emphasize again the narrowness of the issue before us,” the judges wrote. “This appeal does not require us to consider whether the president is immune from indictment and prosecution while in office, nor to consider whether the president may lawfully be ordered to produce documents for use in a state criminal proceeding.”
Next stop: The Supreme Court. And now we will see if the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh appointments have paid off for Donald Trump. It seems clear the appellate court is trying to cut off the question of "absolute immunity" at the pass.
