Updated Thursday Afternoon: Paul M. seems to think, in a sneering fashion, that a campaign that uses its campaign checkbook to pay off sex workers for silence, and fails to report that fact on its FEC forms (that’s a felony — and that’s also… the most charitable of the allegations against 45…) is merely an enemy’s attempt to get his tax returns by… illicit means. [If Paul M. actually believes that formulation — a proposition I highly doubt — he must think he lives in Russia, or Brazil.] No, here in the US, when a president commits a felony, the DA in the city in which the crime was committed has clear jurisdiction to empanel a grand jury, subpoena witnesses and documents, and… discover the truth. That is the unsurprising holding of the Supremes, 7-2, in Vance. End update, for now.

The boys are completely… tongue-tied, We offer this, on this morning’s increasing peril, for future criminal indictments, out of New York, against Donald Trump perhaps in early 2021. See, Trump v. Vance… just as we long ago predicted on one of our other properties, Trump must comply with criminal subpoenas, out of New York… grin… but more coming.

Getting my hands on Mazars now. . . But this is a quote from the 7-2 opinion, in Vance:

…But, like Marshall two centuries prior, the Court recognized the countervailing interests at stake. Invoking the common law maxim that “the public has a right to every man’s evidence,” the Court observed that the public interest in fair and accurate judicial proceedings is at its height in the criminal setting, where our common commitment to justice demands that “guilt shall not escape” nor “innocence suffer.” Id., at 709 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). Because these dual aims would be “defeated if judgments” were “founded on a partial or speculative presentation of the facts,” the Nixon Court recognized that it was “imperative” that “compulsory process be available for the production of evidence needed either by the prosecution or the defense.” Ibid.

The Court thus concluded that the President’s “generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial.” Id., at 713. Two weeks later, President Nixon dutifully released the tapes….

In a statement, Mr. Vance called the decision “a tremendous victory for our nation’s system of justice and its founding principle that no one – not even a president – is above the law.”

“Our investigation, which was delayed for almost a year by this lawsuit, will resume, guided as always by the grand jury’s solemn obligation to follow the law and the facts, wherever they may lead,” Vance said. . . .

[Completely separately, in the first case of the morning, called McGirt v. Oklahoma, Gorsuch sided with the liberal wing. He’s surprising me, in many ways. In a good way, and I’m smiling, as another Colorado-educated lawyer. “For purposes of the Major Crimes Act, land reserved for the Creek Nation since the 19th century remains ‘Indian country’….”] Be careful what you wish for — you Powerline blog boys — when you apply ideological litmus tests, to young, whip-smart Court nominees, as they may well fool you… and simply follow the path of the law, as it exists. Grin.

नमस्ते