Trump tax returns: Supreme Court rules president does not have to reveal financial documents to House

President argued again on Thursday that House Democrats' efforts amount to 'PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!'

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked Congress from obtaining Donald Trump's tax and financial records from his accounting firm and major lenders, meaning voters will not see them before Election Day.

The president had mounted a fierce legal challenge to attempts by House Democrats and prosecutors in Manhattan to gain access to his tax returns and other documents, including ones that could show links to foreign individuals. The high court's decision means the House Democrats who impeached Mr Trump cannot obtain his tax records, financial information and more from his accounting firm, Mazars USA, and his major lenders, Deutsche Bank and Capital One.

The 7-2 decision is a major win for the president, who recently lost one major Supreme Court case that blocked his effort to end the Barack Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program and another landmark decision that protected gay, lesbian, and transgender from workplace discrimination. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clearance Thomas were the lone dissenting justices.

The case could become a landmark decision cited for years in cases pitting presidents and the executive branch against Congress.

"The House's approach fails to take adequate account of the significant separation of powers issues raised by congressional subpoenas for the President's information. Congress and the President have an ongoing institutional relationship as the 'opposite and rival' political branches established by the Constitution," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. "As a result, congressional subpoenas directed at the President differ markedly from congressional subpoenas we have previously reviewed."

The seven justices ruled that the House subpoenas and approach were essentially limitless, meaning it could have set a precedent of allowing this and future Congresses endless access to any president's personal records. The high court long has held to a belief that each branch of government must retain the autonomy and powers given them by the Constitution.

"Far from accounting for separation of powers concerns, the House's approach aggravates them by leaving essentially no limits on the congressional power to subpoena the President's personal records. Any personal paper possessed by a President could potentially "relate to" a conceivable subject of legislation, for Congress has broad legislative powers that touch a vast number of subjects," the majority wrote. "The President's financial records could relate to economic reform, medical records to health reform, school transcripts to education reform, and so on. Indeed, at argument, the House was unable to identify any type of information that lacks some relation to potential legislation.

"Without limits on its subpoena powers, Congress could 'exert an imperious controul' over the Executive Branch and aggrandize itself at the President's expense," the seven justices said, "just as the Framers feared."

The Supreme Court broke with lower courts that had sided with House Democrats, ruling "the subpoenas do not represent a run-of-the-mill legislative effort but rather a clash between rival branches of government over records of intense political interest for all involved."

The decision was a victory for a president who is plummeting in national and swing state polls in his race for a second term, with former Vice President Joe Biden opening wide leads across the country and in those key battlegrounds. But, in another decision, the high court ruled in another 7-2 case with the same two dissenting, that Mr Trump cannot ignore a subpoena from a district attorney in Manhattan who has been seeking the same tax and financial data.

That case could bring legal trouble down the road for the president and his New York-based business – and those who work for it, including his children. The president appeared to realise that despite his big win in the House case, he could be facing long term trouble because of the Manhattan decision.

"Now the Supreme Court gives a delay ruling that they would never have given.......for another President. This is about PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT," he wrote in a series of tweets.

Former US Attorney Joyce Vance suggested there is a reason Mr Trump is trying to keep his tax and financial records secret.

"If there was nothing damaging to him in them, Trump would have already released his taxes. Like every other President since Nixon has done," she tweeted.

"Today's SCOTUS rulings will have more impact on future presidencies than on Trump. They set rules of the road going forward," tweeted Vance, now an University of Alabama law professor. "Trump can continue the delay game that has gotten him this far. The court takes a strong stand for the unremarkable proposition POTUS is not above the law."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said House Democrats will continue fighting the matter in lower courts.

"A careful reading of the Supreme Court rulings related to the president's financial records is not good news for President Trump," she said in a statement. "The court has reaffirmed the Congress's authority to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people, as it asks for further information from the Congress. Congress's constitutional responsibility to uncover the truth continues, specifically related to the President's Russia connection that he is hiding."

At her weekly press conference, the California Democrat said the two rulings are a win for the country, even though her three committees still lack the ability to obtain the records they have sought for years.

"We have a path that the Supreme Court has laid out that we will certainly not ignore," she told reporters. "There was never any way they were going to give us the records right now – but they would give us a path to the records."