The US Supreme Court has ruled 7-2 to allow a New York prosecutor to obtain President Donald Trump's financial records as part of an ongoing criminal investigation, but rejected, also in a 7-2 ruling, the records' release to Democratic congressional committees.

The first of the rulings - allowing the enforcement of a subpoena issued to Trump accounting firm Mazars LLP by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr demanding tax returns as part of a grand jury probe into alleged payoffs to two women, former porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen Mc Dougal in 2016, is a loss for the president, whose defense attorneys argued that the Constitution shields him from any criminal proceedings while in office. Trump has denied having a relationship with either of the women.

The president expressed his disappointment with the ruling, calling it "political prosecution."

However, the second ruling, which prevented Trump's records from being made available to Democratic-led Congressional committees conducting their own separate investigations against him, is arguably a win for the White House, allowing for records to stay private, at least for the short term, because the New York grand jury probe will require confidentiality.

The Democratic-led House Oversight Committee, House Financial Services Committee and House Intelligence Committee have each begun their own finance-related probes into the president, investigating everything from alleged tax fraud and money laundering to vulnerabilities to foreign influence caused by his companies' dealings abroad.

The White House has dismissed all of these claims, and argued that providing the tax records to these committees would immediately lead to them being leaked to the press.