Last week the U.S. Supreme Court rescheduled the oral arguments in three cases that will be heard together—a prelude to rendering a decision that could dramatically impact the future of the Trump presidency and even the Court itself. The cases, whose original argument date was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, have now been rescheduled for May 12, by teleconference. They involve Donald Trump’s challenges to five subpoenas, four issued by committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, and one by a New York City grand jury under the guidance of District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. At issue: whether Trump, by virtue of the fact that he is a sitting president, can preempt banks and accountants from releasing his financial records, including copies of his income tax returns.

The Court’s own precedents weigh heavily against the president, so in order to rule for him the justices will need to significantly rewrite existing law. If they do, it will add volume to the outcry about the partisan nature of the current Court, and will likely reinforce the movement among Democrats to remake the Court, perhaps by enlarging its membership, whenever they get the chance.

The background of the disputes is familiar. Defying decades of tradition for presidential candidates, Trump refused to disclose any part of his tax returns during the 2016 campaign. Since taking office, he has doubled down on his position often, offering a non sequitur of an excuse that he is under audit. Voters, for the past four years, have remained in the dark about whether the president pays his fair share in taxes; gives generously to charities; has had conflicts of interest in his investments that might have made him beholden to foreign companies or governments; or even if his financial-disclosure forms are accurate, as required by federal law. Beyond that, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, gave sworn testimony before Congress in February 2019 that suggested his client might have improperly expensed his hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels on his state and federal tax returns, and also frequently filed false financial statements with his banks and insurers. Given the lengths Trump has gone to keep these records from the public, it’s a safe assumption that his pitched battle against releasing these records is more than a matter of high-minded principle or executive privilege. Even a novice prosecutor would have to conclude that Trump is hiding something (or many things) and fears that a disclosure would do substantial damage to his prospects for reelection.

Four courts so far—two trial courts and two appellate courts—have ruled against the president, which is unsurprising given the applicable law. The subpoenas don’t require Trump to do anything. They are addressed not to Trump but to his banks and accountants. Under the traditional law governing subpoenas, that should be the end of the matter. The third-party doctrine, long embraced by the Supreme Court, says that even the target of grand jury proceedings has no constitutional rights to oppose a governmental demand for records found in the hands of another person, especially when, as here, the records were created by the banks and accountants in the course of their business. In my eight years as an assistant United States attorney, and in more than 30 years since then as a criminal defense lawyer, I have never seen anybody successfully oppose a third-party subpoena for banking or accounting records. In other words, no other American citizen would stand a chance.

But Donald Trump believes that ordinary rules do not apply to him because he is the president of the United States. To quash the grand jury subpoena from New York, his lawyers claim that under the Constitution a president is “absolutely immune” from criminal investigation while he is in office. The only means of addressing a president’s misbehavior, they say, is through impeachment proceedings. Reminder: The president was, in fact, impeached by the House just four months ago, but the Senate, in February, voted to acquit him.