The dispute over the US President's financial records has been smoldering for years. In connection with this, the political opponents in particular ask the question: Why is Donald Trump so reluctantly refusing to surrender these? After all, it breaks with a decade-long tradition under US presidents. Of course, the case also concerns the courts of the country - specifically the country's highest court soon.
As the Supreme Court announced on Friday, it will deal with the issue from March 2020. This announcement is particularly delicate: A decision is expected by the end of June and thus falls in the middle of the hot phase of the election campaign for the presidential election in November.
Trump has been trying to prevent access to his tax returns and other records for some time. The New York City Prosecutor and Democratic-controlled committees in the US House of Representatives have requested that the documents be released.
Lower courts previously ruled that Trump must publish the files. His lawyers argued that Trump, as president, enjoys immunity. "We are pleased that the Supreme Court has granted review of the three pending cases," said Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow in a statement. "These cases raise significant constitutional questions."
The Supreme Court, in which conservative judges form the majority, announced that it wanted to make a decision by June 30. Trump is the first U.S. President since Richard Nixon not to publish his tax returns.
The Stormy Daniels case comes into focus again and again
Among other things, the New York prosecutor had requested tax documents from Trump and his companies over a period of eight years, the reason being the investigation into the payments of hush money to Stormy Daniels, with which Trump is said to have had an affair.
Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen is said to have paid $ 130,000 to Daniels for keeping the allegations secret during the campaign. Trump denies the allegations that Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for violating the Campaign Finance Act.
However, Trump's papers would not be publicly available if the prosecutor received them. Only if they were presented as evidence in a criminal trial would they be published.
