Manhattan DA can obtain Trump’s tax returns, judges rule

NEW YORK — The Manhattan district attorney can enforce a subpoena seeking U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns, a federal appeals panel ruled on Wednesday, dealing yet another blow to the president’s yearlong battle to keep his financial records out of the hands of state prosecutors.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel in New York rejected the president’s arguments that the subpoena should be blocked because it was too broad and amounted to political harassment from the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat.

“Grand juries must necessarily paint with a broad brush,” the judges wrote. They concluded that the president did not show that Vance had been driven by politics.

“None of the president’s allegations, taken together or separately, are sufficient to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued ‘out of malice or an intent to harass,’ ” they wrote.

Trump is expected to try to appeal the decision in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Vance has said that his office will not enforce the subpoena for 12 days in exchange for the president’s lawyers agreeing to move quickly.

Vance has not revealed the scope of his office’s criminal inquiry, citing grand jury secrecy. But prosecutors have suggested in court papers that they are looking at a range of potential crimes, including tax and insurance fraud and falsification of business records. They have said that the tax records are central to the investigation.

The decision marks the fifth time courts have rebuffed the president’s attempts to block the subpoena.