Trump given deadline in tax-document case
NEW YORK — A federal judge in Manhattan has given lawyers for President Donald Trump a Wednesday deadline to say whether he will further challenge a subpoena for his tax documents, part of an ongoing investigation by New York City prosecutors into hush money payments made during the 2016 election season.
The order by U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero follows Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who had been seeking the president’s tax records as part of a probe into the Trump Organization’s role in the payments. In its ruling, the country’s top court said Trump did not have “absolute immunity” from the state court-level criminal subpoena.
Trump could, however, pursue objections to the legality of the grand jury subpoena unrelated to the immunity question. The subpoena was issued on Aug. 29 and has been tied up in appeals in a lawsuit brought by Trump since shortly after it was issued.
“We will respond as appropriate,” Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said after Marrero’s order Friday setting July 15 as a deadline by which the parties must say if there will be future legal challenges to the subpoena.
Marrero, in the two-page order, also scheduled a phone conference for Thursday to discuss future proceedings, should the litigation continue.
Laywers from Vance’s office previously argued that delays could jeopardize their ability to file charges if any are warranted due to the timing of the payments as they apply to state statutes of limitations. The statute of limitations for a misdemeanor falsifying business records count has already passed and the five-year deadline by which to bring a felony-level case over the transactions is approaching.
Vance is investigating whether the Trump Organization falsified business records to conceal alleged payoffs in exchange for silence made ahead of the 2016 election to two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump years ago. Trump has denied the allegations.
In public filings, lawyers for Vance’s office said the records requested “relate to business and financial matters unrelated to any official acts” of the president “and are primarily from the time-period before [Trump] assumed that office.”
A spokesman for Vance declined to comment Friday.