Judge Rules Trump & His Tax Returns Aren't Above the Law

In the past two and a half years, Donald Trump's enablers have made a number of outlandish claims, but perhaps none of them was quite as preposterous as the one that his lawyers made last month, in an effort to prevent New York state prosecutors from obtaining eight years of his tax returns.

In a filing to a federal court in New York, the Trump legal team, including Marc Mukasey, a son of Michael Mukasey, who served as Attorney General during the George W. Bush Administration, argued that, under the U.S. Constitution, a sitting President can't be subjected to any criminal investigation except as part of an impeachment inquiry. The team's argument was not merely that Trump can't be hauled into court and prosecuted—a claim that now has the imprimatur of the U.S. Department of Justice—but that a President can't be subjected to any type of “criminal process,” because it would “distract him from his constitutional duties.”