US Supreme Court to rule in Trump finances cases

The US Supreme Court is to rule on Thursday on whether President Donald Trump must release financial records to prosecutors and Congress, politically sensitive cases with potentially far-reaching implications.

Asserting presidential immunity, the New York real estate tycoon has refused to release his tax returns despite promising to do so during his 2016 campaign for the White House.

Trump’s finances are the target of Democratic-led committees in the House of Representatives which are looking into the president, the Trump Organization and his family in what started as a probe into foreign influence in 2016.

New York prosecutor Cyrus Vance, a Democrat, is looking meanwhile into whether Trump broke campaign finance laws with “hush money” payments to a porn star and a former Playboy model.

The Supreme Court said Wednesday that it would issue its opinions in the remaining cases for this term at 10:00 am (1400 GMT) on Thursday.

Among the pending cases are the ones involving Trump’s finances and the court’s decisions could have an impact on November’s presidential election.

They could also have long-term implications for lawmakers’ ability to scrutinize presidents and test the claim by Trump’s attorneys that a president is immune from criminal investigation while in office.

US presidents are not required by law to release details of their personal finances but every US leader since Richard Nixon has done so.

Trump’s secrecy over his tax returns and personal finances has prompted speculation about the New York real-estate magnate’s true worth and possible financial entanglements.

Congressional investigations have raised questions about whether he has sensitive financial exposure to Russia, and also whether he has used questionable accounting loopholes to avoid paying taxes in the 1990s and 2000s.

In both the New York and congressional cases, subpoenas were issued to Mazars, Trump’s longtime accounting firm, as well as to Deutsche Bank and Capital One bank demanding his financial records for 2010-2018.