Trump’s lawyers say probe tied to payments
District attorney hinted look at tax returns could include “insurance and bank fraud”
Lawyers for President Trump said Monday the local prosecutor seeking eight years of his tax returns in a grand jury investigation was disingenuous in suggesting the probe expanded beyond hush-money payments made to two women during the 2016 campaign, after the prosecutor hinted at a broader review of Trump’s dealings and operations at his company.
The latest dispute arose after Trump launched his most recent challenge to a subpoena to his accounting firm, Mazars USA, for his tax returns following a Supreme Court ruling last month that a sitting president was not immune from state court actions. The ruling left the door open for Trump to challenge the legality of the subpoena — and attorneys for Trump said the prosecutor’s records search was overbroad and amounted to harassment.
In response to a recent filing by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., suggesting that the scope of the investigation was not limited to the 2016 payments and instead included potential “insurance and bank fraud” by the Trump Organization, Trump’s team accused the district attorney of launching a fishing expedition.
The district attorney’s mention of a wider look at potential criminality appeared to be offered as a defense to Trump’s claim that seeking eight years of tax returns was itself a fishing expedition. vance’s last filing in the lawsuit filed by Trump last year to challenge the Mazars subpoena cites news articles that looked at broader possible targets. But the district attorney argued he should not have to reveal details about the scope of his investigation.
References to news reports show “that the District Attorney is still fishing for a way to justify his harassment of the President,” Trump attorney William Consovoy wrote in the filing in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Trump’s legal team has made much of the fact the subpoena to Mazars was identical to congressional subpoenas previously issued. The lawyers said the copied subpoena is proof the prosecutor’s office is motivated by politics. An unredacted version of a sworn statement by a member of the district attorney’s investigation team “confirms that the grand jury is focused on the 2016 payments and that the subpoena” was not copied for convenience’s sake, Consovoy’s reply brief says.
Vance’s office is trying to determine whether payoffs by former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen Mcdougal were improperly concealed as legal fees. Cohen pleaded guilty in federal court in 2018 to several charges, including campaign finance violations related to payments to Daniels and Mcdougal, who both alleged affairs with Trump.