TRUMP LOSES LEGAL BATTLE TO HIDE TAX RETURNS

WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for eight years of Donald Trump's tax returns to be turned over to a New York prosecutor investigating him.

It came as Trump looked set to position himself as the presumptive Republican nominee for 2024 in a speech at a conservative conference in Florida this week.

The former president has been fighting a protracted legal battle to prevent his tax records being obtained by Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney.

Trump has called it “a fishing expedition” and “a witch hunt.”

In 2019, Vance subpoenaed the tax records but disclosed little about what prompted the request, although there have been public reports of “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.”

His investigators have interviewed Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer, who testified to Congress that Trump and his company artificially inflated and devalued the worth of their assets to obtain bank loans and reduce taxes.