A federal appeals court just demolished Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal investigation

Less than two weeks ago, President Trump’s personal attorney William Consovoy stood before a panel of federal appellate judges and told them that the president is immune from criminal investigation even if Trump shoots someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

It didn’t take long for that panel to reject this extraordinary argument. On Monday, an unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that Trump is not immune from such investigations. The case is Trump v. Vance.

Vance arises from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s effort to secure many of Trump’s financial documents from Trump’s accounting firm, including his tax forms. Vance seeks these documents as part of a fairly broad-reaching criminal investigation that may ultimately implicate Trump himself, but that may also only wind up implicating some of Trump’s companies or his business associates.