Trump's lawyers claimed that the Constitution protects the presidency from harassment by lawmakers of an opposing political party.
At issue are subpoenas for personal records issued by three House of Representatives committees, as well as a subpoena issued by a New York State grand jury, including financial records from banks and accountants dating back to 2010. The subpoenas seek financial records from Deutsche Bank, Capital One Bank and Mazars USA accounting firm, businesses that Trump and his family do much of their business with.
"These subpoenas are overreaching, they are an obvious distraction, they’re going to multiply if this court accepts to path that the House is attempting to lay," Trump personal attorney Patrick Strawbridge told the nine high court justices in oral arguments. "There’s still a need to ensure that the president is not going to face undue harassment or distraction."
Justices from the court’s 5-4 conservative majority largely focused on the issue of whether efforts by House Democrats to obtain years of Trump records constituted harassment or where overly burdensome for the president, while liberal justices questioned whether the cases could undermine Congress’s constitutional investigative and oversight function for any presidential administration.
"You're asking us to do is to put a kind of ten-ton weight on the scales between the President and Congress and essentially to make it impossible to perform oversight and to carry out its functions where the President is concerned," Justice Elena Kagan said.
A Supreme Court decision - expected in July - could release troves of documents that Trump has long sought to protect from public disclosure just months before November’s presidential elections. On the other hand, justices could rule Trump’s financial records off-limits, at least as long as the president is in office, according to legal analysts.
