November 18, 2019

If SCOTUS covers for Donald Trump, corruption is the entire government. Developing:

ALI VELSHI: Breaking news from the Supreme Court. The Court has blocked a subpoena for President Trump's financial records. NBC's congressional correspondent Pete Williams joining us. Pete, what does this mean?

PETE WILLIAMS: So, it's a little hard to keep track of these cases. This is one that came from the House Oversight Committee seeking financial records from the Trump administration and Donald Trump personally, that are maintained by the accountants. So it's a subpoena to the accountants. And, remember, this followed Michael Cohen's testimony that Donald Trump sometimes inflated his holdings, sometimes understated them, depending on whether he was trying to get a loan or whether there were tax issues. So they subpoenaed those documents. The Trump lawyers fought it. And all of the lower courts have said this can go through. And there's a deadline here. Wednesday is when the court rulings requiring this material be turned over takes effect. So there's a Wednesday deadline here. Now, the House had said to the Supreme Court, look, we know that this is going to take some time to get all of these filings done. So, we wouldn't object if the Supreme Court, strictly as an administrative matter, without ruling on the merits, puts a hold on the effect of the subpoena. And we would propose to file our legal briefs on November 22nd. And just a moment ago, the Supreme Court said actually, you'll file them on the 21st by 3:00 in the afternoon. So, by Thursday then, we may get -- the door will be open for the Supreme Court to rule on the actual merits. So, this stops the clock, in essence. But it's not a ruling on the merits. And this Wednesday deadline now has gone away. That would have forced the Trump accountants to start turning over his financial records to the House.

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