Donald Trump has devoted himself to many pet projects since becoming president—demonizing immigrants, sucking up to dictators, luring psychiatrists out of retirement—but none have received the kind of time and focus as the undertaking that is keeping his tax returns—which he at one point promised to release!—secret. Unfortunately for Trump, such efforts have not gone so well of late. Last month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a congressional subpoena of his longtime accountants for his financial information, and on Monday, a separate three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those same accountants must turn over eight years of tax returns to New York prosecutors.

Rejecting the extremely Trumpian argument made by his lawyers that he can’t be prosecuted or even investigated during his time in office, the panel said that “any presidential immunity from a state criminal process does not bar the enforcement of such subpoena.” (Trump’s personal lawyer insisted with a straight face last month that such immunity would extend to the president shooting a random pedestrian on Fifth Avenue, saying local authorities could do nothing about it.) The court upheld an October ruling from U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, who characterized the claims of presidential immunity as “repugnant to the nation’s fundamental structure and constitutional values.”

Further, Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann wrote that in this particular case, the notion that the founding fathers wanted to avoid the president being distracted by such investigations is bullshit because the subpoena was issued to the accounting firm Mazars, not Trump himself. That may cause Trump to sweat like he’s just been told Conan the Baghdadi dog is waiting in the Oval Office and has been trained to detect contraband Big Macs stuffed down people’s pants, but that’s his problem, not the court’s. “The subpoena at issue is directed not at the President, but to his accountants; compliance does not require the President to do anything at all,” Katzmann said. Judges Denny Chin and Christopher F. Droney agreed.

Luckily for Trump, for whom the notion of people seeing his tax returns is apparently more terrifying than multiple, credible allegations of sexual assault, the ruling doesn’t mean the information will be turned over immediately. In a statement, attorney Jay Sekulow said that the decision will be appealed to the Supreme Court, adding that the constitutional implications of allowing New York prosecutors to investigate whether any state laws were broken in connection to hush-money payments made before the 2016 election are “significant.” That appeal is due in 10 days, and while the Supreme Court could simply let the ruling stand and refuse to hear the case, something tells us a certain beer-loving justice, along with this fellow conservatives, will try to persuade John Roberts to come to their pal’s rescue.

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