President Trump criticized Thursday’s Supreme Court rulings that didn’t halt Democrats’ efforts to obtain his tax records, saying he’s the victim of another partisan “hoax,” even though the high court kept the long-sought documents shielded for now.
“The ruling’s basically starting all over again, sending everything back down to the lower courts and start all over again,” the president told reporters at the White House.
Mr. Trump said he was “not satisfied” with a ruling that allows Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance to subpoena his tax records. He said he was “satisfied” with the justices’ ruling in a second case that blocks Congress from obtaining the records, at least for now.
“It’s a political witch hunt,” the president said. “It’s a hoax, just like the Mueller investigation was a hoax that I won, and this is another hoax. This is purely political.”
Mr. Trump said he has beaten his opponents at the federal level, so Democrats are trying to obtain his records in New York, which he called “a hellhole.”
Despite the president’s objections, the White House called the rulings “a big win” for Mr. Trump. There was a general sense of relief among the president’s aides and supporters that the rulings will prevent any of his tax records from becoming public before the November election.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the justices in the New York case “laid out a road map” for the president to challenge a subpoena on various legal grounds in state court.
Ms. McEnany said Mr. Trump “still maintains his initial position” that a president should be immune from prosecution while in office. But she said the president will abide by the rulings.
“He accepts any Supreme Court opinion as the law of the land,” she said. “He can disagree with the opinion, but he certainly will follow it.”
She also criticized Mr. Vance as a “partisan attorney” who is “aiding and abetting” House Democrats in their bid to obtain the president’s tax records.
The White House said, as Mr. Trump has argued for years, that his tax returns are under audit and that he’ll release them when the audit is completed.
Ms. McEnany said the ruling against congressional Democrats demonstrated that “Congress may not act as a roving investigative body, especially against a co-equal branch of government.”
“Last year, Democrat-run House committees subpoenaed President Trump’s financial records in an effort to gain partisan advantage in the upcoming presidential campaign,” she said. “Their claim that the financial records could serve as ’a useful case study’ to learn about ’unsafe lending practices’ and ’money laundering’ was plainly disingenuous. The Supreme Court saw through these transparent smoke-screens, with all nine justices declaring that more is required to establish a valid legislative purpose than the mere say-so of partisan committee chairmen.”
The president renewed his complaint of a double-standard, saying he’s being persecuted in another court case while nobody has been punished from “Obama and Biden and everybody else … spying on my campaign illegally.”
“It’s the biggest political crime in the history of our country,” he said.
He said on Twitter of the Obama administration’s spying on his campaign in 2016, “This crime was taking place even before my election, everyone knows it, and yet all are frozen stiff with fear.”
“No Republican Senate Judiciary response, NO ’JUSTICE’, NO FBI, NO NOTHING,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “Major horror show REPORTS on [former FBI Director James B.] Comey & [former deputy director Andrew] McCabe, guilty as hell, nothing happens. Catch Obama & Biden cold, nothing. A 3 year, $45,000,000 Mueller HOAX, failed - investigated everything.”
Mr. Trump said courts “in the past have given broad deference’” to other presidents.
“BUT NOT ME!” he tweeted. “This is all a political prosecution. I won the Mueller Witch Hunt, and others, and now I have to keep fighting in a politically corrupt New York. Not fair to this Presidency or Administration!”
U.S. Attorney John Durham is conducting a criminal investigation into the origins of the FBI’s decision to carry out surveillance of Trump campaign officials in 2016. Attorney General William Barr has said the probe likely won’t touch on former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, has tweeted that it would be “sad” if Mr. Durham’s probe isn’t completed before the presidential election in November.
“The deep state is so deep that ppl get away w political crimes,” Mr. Grassley tweeted. “Durham shld be producing some fruit of his labor.”
Trump campaign senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis said the rulings are “just a delayed victory for President Trump.”
“The court is sending both cases back to the lower courts for further proceedings and the president will continue to fight for his constitutionally protected right to be free from congressional and prosecutorial harassment and he will prevail,” Ms. Ellis said.
She said Congress “cannot articulate any legitimate legislative purpose to satisfy the criteria set forth by the Supreme Court,” and that Mr. Vance “is on a fishing expedition that amounts to a malicious prosecution.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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