DA accuses Trump of delay tactics in fight over tax returns

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office accused President Donald Trump on Thursday of purposely dragging out a court battle over a subpoena seeking eight years of his tax returns in an attempt to effectively shield himself from criminal investigation.

Carey R. Dunne, a lawyer for the prosecutor’s office, told a federal judge that the longer the president disputes the subpoena, the higher the chance that the statute of limitations would expire for any possible crime that may have been committed.

The office is seeking the president’s personal tax returns and those of his family business, the Trump Organization, as part of an investigation into hush-money payments made in the runup to the 2016 election. The president has been fighting the subpoena for nearly a year. “What the president’s lawyers are seeking here is delay,” Dunne said. “I think that’s the entire strategy here.”

The prosecutor’s assertion came during a virtual court hearing held before the federal judge, Victor Marrero, in Manhattan. Trump’s lawyers did not respond directly to the accusation in court and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, issued the subpoena to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, in August.

Trump initially fought the subpoena last year with a bold and untested argument: that a sitting president was immune from a state criminal investigation. Marrero oversaw that case and ruled against the president.