Prosecutors digging into Trump’s tax and financial records

Manhattan district attorney finally gets Trump tax documents, but that doesn’t mean they will become public. After a lengthy court battle, the Manhattan district attorney is in possession of Donald Trump’s tax returns and other financial records as part of a criminal investigation into the former president and his family-run Trump Organization, a spokesman for the office confirmed on Thursday.

The New York prosecutor’s office obtained the voluminous records on Monday, the same day the US Supreme Court rejected Trump’s latest attempt to keep his longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA, from turning over the records. Danny Frost, a spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, confirmed the office’s receipt of the documents, which came some 18 months after a subpoena was issued for them. The records, which include eight years of tax returns, could boost the district attorney’s investigation into the Trump Organization. Unlike all other recent US presidents, Trump refused to make his tax returns public. The data could provide details on his wealth and the activities of the family-run real estate company. A spokesman for Mazars USA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Monday, after the Supreme Court ruling, Trump issued a statement calling Vance’s investigation part of “the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our country”. Vance subpoenaed Mazars in 2019 seeking Trump’s corporate and personal tax returns from 2011 to 2018. Trump’s lawyers sued to block the subpoena, arguing that a sitting president has absolute immunity from state criminal investigations.

The Supreme Court in July rejected those arguments but said Trump could raise other objections. Trump’s lawyers then told lower courts the subpoena was overly broad and amounted to political harassment but the lower courts rejected those claims last year.....