Judge who ordered Trump to turn over tax returns also seems in favor of presidential indictment

(Image credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP)

last updated 7 October 2019

District Court Judge Victor Marrero had more than one opinion to share Monday morning.

Marrero, a federal judge in Manhattan, on Monday rejected President Trump's argument against handing over eight years' worth of his New York state tax returns to Manhattan prosecutors. It marks the next step in Democrats' divisive attempts to get Trump's tax returns, and in his ruling, Marrero snuck an additional divisive take of his own.

As it stands, the federal Office of Legal Counsel has an opinion that blocks sitting presidents from being indicted. But that perceived mandate "has a certain degree of axiomatic acceptance," Marrero said in his ruling, writing that "DOJ memos which propagate it" have made it seem as if it's "inscribed by constitutional tablets so-etched by the Supreme Court." Marerro's court sees this false legitimacy as "not warranted," he continued, and went on to dismantle the OLC ruling further.

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In plain English, that essentially means Marrero says the OLC opinion is not as legally binding as it seems. And in case it wasn't clear where Marrero was going with this, he outlined an scenario in which a president probably should be indicted: If impeachable offenses seemingly came up against the hypothetical commander in chief, but it was toward the end of their term with no time for Congress to actually impeach them. Kathryn Krawczyk

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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