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

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.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

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