A federal judge on Thursday overturned President Trump’s bid to hide his tax records from the Manhattan District Attorney – the latest blow to the president in his legal battle to keep the records out of the public eye.
In the ruling, Judge Victor Marrero dismissed a modified complaint from the president’s legal team, claiming that district attorney Cy Vance was a fish expedition from his tax return and “wildly exaggerated.”
Marrero wrote that if the ruling was rejected, it would essentially immunity the executive branch from the judicial process – leaving the possibility for that period to extend to other figures.
“At its core, absolute immunity is achieved through a back door, an entry point through which not only a president but also potentially other individuals and entities, public and private, could be effectively covered for judicial process,” the judge wrote.
Vance is in fact investigating Trump for hush-money payments made by his 2016 campaign adviser Michael Cohen to women who claim they had affairs with Trump.
The president’s lawyers argued that saying his tax return was too much, in part, because it was not limited to the payments made by Cohen – an argument that Marrero rejected in his ruling Thursday.
“In general, the president’s allegations of legitimacy in accepting the grand jury’s subsidies fail, not even at the plea stage,” Marrero wrote.
He added that Vance “is under no obligation to confirm the scope of his investigation.”
Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a higher appeal by Trump’s lawyers seeking to block the release of his tax documents in an earlier complaint filed by his lawyers against Vance’s conviction.
“The president is not yet absolutely immune from state criminals seeking his private papers and still entitled to an increased standard of emergency,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion.
Hours after the verdict was handed down, Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency appeal of the decision with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
.
