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WASHINGTON: The United States Supreme Court on Monday (February 22) paved the way for a New York City prosecutor to obtain former President Donald Trump’s tax returns and other financial records as part of a criminal investigation, a blow to your quest to hide details of your finances.
The judges without comment rejected Trump’s request to stay an Oct. 7 lower court ruling ordering the former Republican president’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, to comply with a subpoena to deliver the materials to a grand jury convened by the Manhattan district attorney. Cyrus Vance, Democrat.
“The work continues,” Vance said in a statement issued after the court action.
Vance had previously said in a letter to Trump’s attorneys that his office would be free to immediately enforce the subpoena if the judges rejected Trump’s request.
A lawyer for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority with three Trump appointments, had already ruled once in the dispute, rejecting Trump’s broad argument last July that he was immune from criminal investigations as acting president.
Unlike all other recent US presidents, Trump refused during his four years in office to release his tax returns. The data could provide details about his estate and the activities of his family’s real estate company, the Trump Organization.
Trump, who left office on January 20 after being defeated in his November 3 re-election bid by Democrat Joe Biden, continues to face a number of legal problems related to his personal and business conduct.
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Vance issued a subpoena to Mazars in August 2019 seeking Trump’s corporate and personal tax returns from 2011 to 2018. Trump’s attorneys sued to block the subpoena, arguing that as sitting president, Trump had absolute immunity from investigations. state criminal courts.
The Supreme Court in its July ruling rejected those arguments, but said Trump could raise other objections to the subpoena. Trump’s lawyers later argued in lower courts that the subpoena was too broad and amounted to political harassment, but US District Judge Victor Marrero in August and the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit con New York-based headquarters in October rejected those claims.
Vance’s investigation, which began more than two years ago, had focused on the secret money payments that former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen made before the 2016 election to two women: the film actress. Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had sexual encounters with Trump.
In recent court filings, Vance suggested that the investigation is now broader and could focus on possible bank, tax and insurance fraud, as well as falsification of business records.
In separate litigation, the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives sought to cite similar records. In July, the Supreme Court returned the matter to the lower courts for review.
