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INVESTIGATIONS UPDATE
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent

Presidential impeachment is a high-stakes process, rare in American government.  But this impeachment probe is just one of many investigations President Donald Trump is facing. We’ll send you a more full update in our Impeachment Brief tomorrow, but today we want to lay out the status of two other ongoing investigations into Trump that are moving through the courts.

• Status: An appeals court ruled yesterday that an accounting firm should hand over Mr. Trump’s tax records to a New York state grand jury investigating payments to two women who claim to have had affairs with Trump. What’s next:  The Supreme Court. The president’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, plans to appeal to the highest court. At the earliest, the case would reach the court June of next year.

• Summary: Several investigations are seeking the president’s tax returns, but this one has moved the farthest and the fastest through courts. In this case, New York state is investigating payments to two women who alleged they had affairs with Mr. Trump before he was president.  As part of the probe, prosecutors subpoenaed his accounting firm, Mazars, for eight years of tax records. The president’s attorneys have argued in court that he has unlimited immunity while in office. But a three-judge panel on the 2nd District Circuit Court of Appeals found that the immunity argument does not apply to this subpoena because it does not threaten immediate action or prosecution of the president.

• Status: Two cases are in two appeals courts. The president has won some preliminary battles, lost others.

• What’s next: The case in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, led by House Democrats, is awaiting response from the Department of Justice, which is arguing the president’s position. They have until mid-November to file that.  The case in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, led by attorneys general in Maryland and Washington, D.C., was initially rejected by three appeals court judges, but the states involved won the chance to appeal to the entire court. 

• Summary: In both of these lawsuits, Democratic lawmakers allege that the president is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bans U.S. lawmakers from accepting “emoluments” or things of value from foreign governments. They argue Trump profits  from foreign governments staying at his properties. In addition to the tricky substantive question, courts have spent significant time analyzing whether the states or House Democrats filing these lawsuits have legal standing to bring the cases.

Sanders outpaces other 2020 Dems in Latino fundraising support — Nov. 5. POLITICO reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised more in donations from Latinos than any other Democratic primary candidate through June 30. Beto O’Rourke, who dropped out of the race last week, came in second. Why it matters: Latino voters will be important to winning the nomination, especially in some early primary states, like California and Nevada. — POLITICO

Judge dismisses health care challenge by prisoner at Guantánamo Bay — Nov. 4. An Iraqi prisoner facing charges of war crimes stemming from his ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces will not be cared for by an independent civilian doctor. Why it matters: The judge ruled that the prisoners do not have a constitutional right to choose their own medical providers. — The New York Times