Days after the United States Supreme Court defeated President Trump, clearing the way for the Manhattan district attorney to seek his tax returns, his attorneys renewed on Wednesday their efforts to block or at least restrict access. to the records.
Trump’s attorneys wrote to the federal judge in Manhattan, who originally presided over the case, saying they planned to argue that the district attorney’s subpoena was too broad and politically motivated.
The recent Supreme Court decision overturned the president’s previous argument that he could not be criminally investigated. In the new filing, Trump’s attorneys noted that the decision allowed him to raise other objections: that the subpoena “is motivated by a desire to harass or is carried out in bad faith” and that it would hamper his constitutional duties.
District President and District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, have been locked in a battle for records for nearly a year.
Judge Marrero is scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday to discuss a timeline for further arguments. You are not expected to rule on the merits of either party’s position in the citation itself.
Michael D. Cohen, the president’s former attorney, paid Ms. Daniels $ 130,000 to buy her silence during the 2016 presidential campaign and later pleaded guilty to violations of the campaign’s federal finances for her role in that settlement. and another payment of silence.
Cohen, who is serving a three-year sentence in federal prison in Otisville, New York, implicated the president and said in court that he had acted on Trump’s orders.
After federal prosecutors concluded their investigation last year, Mr. Vance’s office began examining whether New York State laws had been violated when Mr. Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed Mr. Cohen. The subpoena was issued as part of that investigation.
In October, Judge Marrero, in a 75-page opinion, rejected Trump’s argument that he was immune from any investigation, calling it “disgusting to the nation’s government structure and constitutional values.”
After a panel of the federal appeals court unanimously upheld the ruling, the president requested a review in the Supreme Court.
