Judge: Trump must give tax returns to DA
A federal judge on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump’s latest effort to block the Manhattan district attorney from obtaining his tax returns, roundly dismissing Trump’s arguments that the prosecutor’s grand jury subpoena was “wildly overbroad” and issued in bad faith.
The ruling by Judge Victor Marrero of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York marked another setback for the president in his yearlong fight to block the subpoena. The conflict has already reached the Supreme Court once and could end up there again as Trump’s lawyers quickly filed papers saying he would appeal. The legal wrangling means an ultimate decision is unlikely before the November presidential election.
The district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, has been seeking eight years of Trump’s personal and business returns and other financial records as part of an investigation into the president’s business practices.
The Supreme Court, in a landmark decision last month, denied Trump’s initial argument that a sitting president had immunity from criminal investigation. But that ruling opened the door for the president to return to the lower court in Manhattan and raise other objections to the subpoena.
Trump renewed his fight with an argument that the subpoena was seeking information far beyond the jurisdiction of a local district attorney. His lawyers also argued it was issued in a “fit of pique,” simply copying a subpoena issued by congressional Democrats who had been frustrated in their efforts to obtain Trump’s financial information.
But in his decision, Marrero dismissed the president’s new objections, saying that the judicial process did not “automatically transform into an incidence of incapacitating harassment and ill will merely because the proceedings potentially may implicate the president.”
Reacting to the judge’s ruling, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, “This is a continuation of the witch hunt, the greatest witch hunt in history. There’s never been anything like it. We’ll probably end up back in the Supreme Court.”