Women who claim they had affairs with the president. The Supreme Court ordering more proceedings in lower courts. The president did get some better news in a second ruling which the justices are also sending back to a lower court. This Decision Centers on subpoenas from three house committees seeking Business Records from the trump organizations Accounting Firm and two banks. The court also ruling 72 in this one that the president can fight congress on this. The house will not get his records for now. Right now on capitol hill were waiting and watching for House Speaker nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house set to take to the podium any moment now. We will be watching and listening for her reaction to these decisions from the Supreme Court. Well take you there when she begins to speak about the decisions. I want to go right to our team of reporters and experts. Nbc justice correspondent Pete Williams, National Security and justice correspondent tom winter, former clerk to then judge Sonia Sotomayor and kim whaley, former sis stnt u. S. Attorney in washington, d. C. And associate independent counsel in the white water investigation. Mr. Williams, ill start with you. Walk us through these two Big Decisions and what they mean. On the cy vance case, the new york grand jury case on both of them, by the way, it means whoa ear not going to see any of the president s records immediately, maybe not even before the election. Its going to take months and months for this to work through the lower court. Thats the top line here. In terms of the specific cases, the court basically dismissed the president s two arguments that hes absolutely immune from any part of the criminal justice process because the sitting president cant be indicted. If you unleash all the local prosecutors, president s will be harassed. What the court says is the president now, with those absolute claims gone, can go back to the lower courts and make the same kind of claim anybody else would on why a subpoena should be quashed or changed. He can argue the same thing any other citizen would. He can also argue that having to put up with this from a state prosecutor would be harassment or would take too much of his time, in other words. Sort of a little bit of a reflection of his argument there. Its a win for the prosecutor because it says the prosecutor has a right to see this. The president is not immune to it. It takes some time to work it out. On the congressional one, as you say, this is more of a mixed victory. What they say is the president cant absolutely stiff congress. But on the other hand, congress cant just have anything it wants, so theres a test that the lower courts have to apply. They have to say, is the information theyre seeking available from some other source. Is the subpoena too broad. Remember, thats one of the problems the democrats had, the subpoenas were so broad, seeking years of information from, not only the president , but his relatives, other people who work for the trump organization. Thirdly, does congress have in essence the right to see this. Finally, would this be too much of a burden on the president to respond. So its going to take months for this to work through the lower courts. Both of these are, in a sense, landmark rulings because they both try to set out what basically the terms are for when a local prosecutor or congress can seek information from a sitting president. Bear in mind here one of the things that made these cases a little bit different is, none of these requests for material from the president himself. They were directed to his accountants and his banks. Secondly, very little of it applied none of it applied to the president s official duties and very little of it applied to the president s time in office. So for all those reasons, these are important cases. They will undoubtedly set precedent for years to come when there are similar requests for material from sitting president s. Justice correspondent Pete Williams on these two in petes words landmark rulings. Thank you as always. Tom, what, if anything, are we hearing from the Manhattan District Attorney, cy vance, about that specific case . Craig, we can actually show you his statement. He says this is, quote, a tremendous victory for our nations 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 assume, guided as always by the grand jurys solemn obligation to follow the law and the facts, wherever they may lead. This is certainly a victory for cy vance who is having quite a year with his guilty verdict that he was able to get in something totally unrelated, involving a case involving Sexual Assault in harvey weinstein. Cy vance is having quite a year as a local prosecutor. With respect specifically to the president , this is not investigation just looking at the president s tax returns. Thats not the only thing theyve asked for here. They have asked for the underlying documents that were used to come up with those tax returns. This is a case that doesnt just have to do with the hush money payments. It also wants to look into werent his fax filings were accurate. In other words, what were his real revenues or real values of property, his real expenses . What were the guts of those tax returns and did he file them accurately . Theres other parts of this that, frankly, i dont think we have an accurate handle on yet. This is investigation that will certainly continue going forward. To petes point, this goes back to the lower courts where there may be continuing legal battles. Its going to take some time. I fully expect the Manhattan District Attorneys Office will file something asking for an expedited ruling from the lower courts to get these tax documents. Its obviously that the president will likely fight some of that in the courts, so it will be some time before they get it. The documents were requested, on a final point here, under grand jury subpoena. Its important to know what that means. It means these documents cant be disclosed in other words, cy vance cant put them on his website when he gets them. If he brings criminal charge, it wont come in the initial filings of the charges. We wont see many details there. Thats a decision made by state courts. It likely wouldnt be until we have a trial, craig, if there is one that these documents might come out in the form of exhibits. As far as when you and i have everybody watching us will get a chance to see them with respect to the Manhattan District Attorneys case, its likely it will be some time, if ever, that we get to put our eyes on them, craig. Certainly not before the election in november. This notion that people may somehow be able to see the president s tax returns or some of the underlying information connected to those returns before the election, thats not going to happen. Melissa, what should we, if anything, be reading into where the justices sided in these decisions . Both rulings 72. The chief justice again this time around joining neil gorsuch deciding with the majority. What, if anything, can we glean from that . The one thing we can glean is the real winner is chief Justice John Roberts who managed to steer the Supreme Court out of potentially fraught political waters during an election year. Ill note one interesting decision in the one about the congressional subpoenas please stand by. Speaker of the house nancy pelosi talking about this right now. Clearly achievable by us in the lower court, and we will continue to go down that path. The decision enables to enable the trump administrations i dont even know what theyre saying about it. I hear theyre tweeting one thing and other people are saying another. Whatever it is, its not good news for the president of the United States. It is a path that we will take. So i put out a statement and i dont see it here. Do we have a copy of the statement . Its not here. You dont need me to give you a piece of paper to have what the statement is. It took me a little longer to get out here because i wanted to read to the bottom end of the decision. Chief justice specifically speaks to the fact that the president is not above the law. That is something that was proclaimed in the decision, including two of his recent appointments. Careful reading of the Supreme Court rulings related to the president s financial records is not good news for President Trump. The court reaffirmed the congresss authority to conduct oversight on behalf of the American People as it asks for further information from congress. Congresss constitutional responsibility to uncover the truth specifically related to the president s russia connection that he is hiding. The congress will continue to conduct oversight for the people upholding the separation of powers that is genius of our constitution. We will continue to press our case in the lower courts. Thats what happened this morning. Earlier this morning, for the 16th week in a row, over 1 million americans applied for unemployment insurance. 16th week in a row. We have to open up our economy. We can only do so by killing off the virus. Thats whats in the heroes act. Testing, tracing, treatment, separati separation, masking, wash your hands, keep your distance. Thats what is in the heroes act. All of the scientific pronouncements we have been watching and listening to speaker of the house nancy pelosi. Right now shes of course talking about reopening the economy in our on going battle against the pandemic. Before that she was talking about the Supreme Courts decision related to the president s tax returns and finances. I want to bring back melissa murray. Melissa, we were talking about the ramifications of this decision and what we can glean from the 72 split in both cases before the speaker of the house interrupted us. Pick up where you left off if you can. Sure. I was just saying that this is a real win for chief Justice John Roberts who is the courts institutional steward. Hes been wanting to steer the court out of politically fraught waters. I will note in an interesting aside in the mazars opinion about the congressional subpoenas, the chief justice notes that ordinarily this would never even get to a federal court because the typical course is to have the Congressional Branch work it out with the executive branch. Theres a Hurley Burley hashing it out about what needs to be disclosed. He notes that that has not happened here and that is why were in court. Again, i think thats a snarky aside to the fact that this administration has consistently stonewalled congress and that isnt the usual order of things. While you were discussing that, we actually got a statement in from the president s Accounting Firm, mazars usa, a spokesperson. Ill read the statement we just got in, quote, alongside counsel, we are reviewing the decision in its entirety to fully understand our obligations. As previously noted mazars usa fully intends to comply with its legal obligations. That just coming in moments ago. Melis melissa, as pete pointed out, this doesnt mean were going to see the president s tax returns or financial records here in the short term. Do you think, based on the reading of this decision, that at some point we are going to see those things . I think its likely we could. The idea that a sitting president is completely immune from disclosing items that are rudimentary and personal but are within the scope of an inquiry and common investigation or congressional subpoena, i think is unusual. We might not see these before the election. Thats exactly what the president was worried about. Its unlikely he wants this to come out before the election cycle. I think its likely in time well see this information eventually disclosed. Will it matter at that point . Unclear. Kim whaley, this on going debate over the constitutionality of the trump administrations policies and decision making, it inspired you to write a book about the constitution. From a macro level here, how does todays Court Decision reshape the balance of power between congress and the white house . Or does it . Its absolutely critical to preservation of the separation of powers, and i think its significant that the newest justice, Justice Kavanaugh is in the majority on both of these opinions. The reason its so important is because, i think, as professor murray indicated, this white house has challenged the basic guard rails of the separation of powers across the board outing people within that are whistleblowers, firing inspectors general, having private parties like Rudy Giuliani conduct Foreign Policy without going through advice and consent, recontributing moneys that were appropriately from the congress, pushing against the emoluments clause. We have in place an internal policy that started with nixon that says you cant prosecute a sitting president. Thats not a law. Its not in the constitution. Its not a statute. Its just an internal policy decision. So what was at stake in these two cases is whether theres any meaningful oversight of the office of the presidency outside of an actual election. That was the argument made by the republicans in the trial in the senate on impeachment, that essentially its election, folks. I also wrote a book thats just out a few weeks ago on voting, and i do think that is the critical way of checking the presidency. But essentially the court did a few things. One said congress does have authority to subpoena information from a president. That has been challenged by this president. They basically set that in stone. Number two, when youre talking about privately held information, this is not something out of the white house, this isnt something in National Security coffers. Hes a regular person for purposes of a criminal investigation by a local prosecutor. Thats also significant because whats good for the goose is good for the gander. This is a shot across the baugh for all president s that you are not immune from any oversight short of an election which is fraught by virtue of russian interference and other issues. I think in terms of shoring up the legitimacy and sustainability of american democracy, this was a watershed, absolutely crucial moment in american history. Tom winter, while we are having this discussion, Michael Cohen, the president s former fixer slash lawyer, Michael Cohen is in a federal Court Building once again. A word a short time ago that we may hear from mr. Cohen about what were talking about here, the Supreme Courts decision related to the president s tax returns and other documents. Michael cohen, remind folks, tom, how he fits into all of this. I think youre referring to our colleague katy turs reporting saying hell likely speak. Hes meeting with his probation officer, is our understanding. I think a couple important things to remember with respect to Michael Cohen. First off, hes one of the few people that was inside the trump organizations kind of close ranks that has broken ranks. Obviously he has pleaded guilty to federal charges involving Campaign Finance violations involving hush money payments to two women for affairs that the president has strenuously denied. Hes pleaded guilty in that case, for lying to congress with respect to the russia investigation and the case they were conducting in the case brought by the special counsels office. Hes spoken with prosecutors in new york, spoken with prosecutors for the now defunct special counsels office, the fbi and the Manhattan District Attorneys Office. They came and visited him when he was in prison before his release because of covid19 concerns. Ive thought about all the times Michael Cohen has spoken to investigators on the state level, the federal level. And ive counted up the amount of cases that have been brought as a result of things hes told them, and the number is zero. Thats not to denigrate Michael Cohen because these cases, frankly, will be made on the documents thats the reason were here and speaking about it today in the Supreme Courts decision. Ultimately its the tax documents that would be needed to prove any sort of case. Michael cohen can perhaps provide roadmap, but i think its important to remember what federal prosecutors say in new york at the time of his sentencing that he hadnt been a full cooperator and somebody totally forthcoming. Hes a complicated figure in all of this. How many images have we shown with him close to the president of the United States . He was his fixer, his personal attorney. I think it will be interesting to see if any of the information that hes provided will ultimately lead to a prosecutable case. So thats something well have to follow, craig. But obviously hes out, hes able to speak. Something well have to watch closely. Kim wehle, before i let you go, you alluded to the expansive view of president ial immunity in the case of the manhattan d. A. How does that ruling impact how this administration operates . I think it is one of the few places, it looks like, where theres going to be a stop sign thats actually enforced. The president has to understand now that he cant control private parties. Remember, this is not the president producing information. This is the president reaching out to a private party, an Accounting Firm with respect to the congressional su