A case study in Chief Justice John Roberts's strategy for navigating politically fraught cases in the Trump era is about to come to a close not with a bang but—as Roberts apparently planned all along—with a whimper.

A thread on Trump v. Vance.

This case asked whether Cy Vance, the Manhattan DA, could subpoena Trump's accountant for 8 years of his tax and other financial records as part of an investigation into possible financial crimes.

Trump lost bids in lower courts to invalidate the subpoena and turned to SCOTUS.

In July, SCOTUS issued a 7-2 loss for Trump, saying that sitting presidents have no absolute immunity from criminal process. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/07/09/the-supreme-court-hands-donald-trump-a-defeat-over-his-finances

BUT—and this is a rather big but—as emphatic as the decision in Vance was about presidents not being above the law, the opinion gave Trump another chance to make narrower, more targeted arguments against the subpoena in the lower courts. Trump did. This delayed things a bit.

But the district court acted quickly to dismiss Trump's newly manufactured arguments against the subpoenas and the 2nd circuit court of appeals promptly affirmed. Then Trump came back to SCOTUS *again* for relief. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20A63/157461/20201013102953654_Trump%20v.%20Vance%20II%20-%20Emergency%20Stay%20App.pdf

What did SCOTUS do with Trump's plea to prevent Mazars USA, the accountant, from finally sending Vance the documents?

Nothing.

Trump filed the emergency stay request on October 13, 2020.

The Supreme Court has been sitting on it for three months.

Why the inaction?

My read: if Trump had won the election, SCOTUS would have had to resolve the request one way or the other. But if Trump were to lose, as he in fact did, whatever lingering immunity the presidency may give him would vanish on January 20th, mooting the case.

So when Biden won, the justices just kept Trump's request shoved in the back of the drawer and let time do its work. No muss, no fuss, no press, no backlash, no transfer of possibly incriminating documents to a hungry NYC DA in the waning months of Trump's presidency.

To sum up:

* SCOTUS gets to make a grand statement about the rule of law w/o actually allowing a subpoena against a sitting president to be enforced
* The documents eventually flow to Vance without a Supreme Court order
* Trump faces the music as soon as he leaves office

It's a compromise, path-of-least-resistance plan Roberts seems to have worked out with his colleagues from the start.

And as Linda Greenhouse wrote today, few in Washington DC are happier to see Donald Trump go next Wednesday than the Chief Justice of the United States.

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