Prosecutor can enforce subpoena for Trump’s tax returns, court says

NEW YORK - A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Manhattan’s district attorney can enforce his subpoena for President Donald Trump’s tax returns, rejecting a bid by Trump’s lawyers to kill the request on grounds it’s a malicious political ploy and potentially setting up another high-stakes showdown at the Supreme Court.

Though the district attorney has agreed not to enforce his subpoena immediately while Trump seeks a stay from the Supreme Court, Wednesday’s ruling marks another blow for the president, who has fought for more than a year to shield his financial records from investigators, and follows separate, jarring revelations about the enormity of his debt.

The ruling was issued by a panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded, “We have considered all of the President’s remaining contentions on appeal and have found in them no basis for reversal.” District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is seeking eight years of the president’s tax returns and related documents as part of his investigation into alleged hush-money payments made ahead of the 2016 election to two women who said they had affairs with Trump years prior. Trump denies the claims. Investigators want to determine if efforts were made to conceal the payments on tax documents by labeling them legal expenses. Trump’s lawyers had argued Vance was on a “fishing expedition” and out to harass the president, saying the grand jury subpoena to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, was issued in “bad faith.” But the district attorney’s office had indicated recently that its probe also includes dealings at the Trump Organization, the president’s family business that oversees hundreds of subsidiaries.