Supreme Court Rules Trump Cannot Block Release of Financial Records--Conservative Trump appointees Gorsuch and Kavenaugh concur -- KUDOS TO THE COURT

The two decisions surrounding Trump's submission of his taxes, in my opinion, were a decided defeat for Trump. The first regarding grand jury subpoenas brought by the Southern District of New York and in the second regarding Congressional subpoenas Chief Justice John Roberts who wrote for the majority said “No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding.” Justices Kavenaugh and Gorsuch, Trump conservative appointees, joined with the majority. While it is true that the cases are being sent back to the district courts for clarification and that it is unlikely the electorate will see Trump's taxes before the election, (except in the Grand Jury of the Southern District of New York case which can move quickly) the Court reaffirmed the democracy saving value that no one is above the law. Moreover, the electorate may not look kindly on a president who, unlike any other president, refuses to release his taxes the electorate has a right to know. What is he trying to hide?

The SCOTUS findings on Trump's taxes is no small thing. If the decision had gone as Trump wished that the executive occupies a unique position in this government and should be held to a different more exceptional insulated standard than anyone else it would have subverted the very essence of the unique balance of power democracy our nation has been since its founding and which has been an example to the world in the panoply of governing. It would have placed him and other succeeding presidencies squarely above the law.

This demonstrates one cannot always predict SCOTUS. Sometimes findings are a true effort of the Court to preserve our founding document, the Constitution, and justices make an effort to enshrine SCOTUS as a non-political third branch of government the Founders intended it to be. The recent SCOTUS decisions reinforce the Constitutional mandate of the balance of power reaffirming the second branch of government, the Executive branch, is not above the law.

Kudos directed to the Court for threading the needle ever so delicately in favor of our American balance of power experiment of democracy and the rule of law hoping too Trump's taxes at least as to the Southern District of New York may appear sooner than expected.