President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for Minnesota from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, USA, October 10, 2019.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump’s tax records have been passed to District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. In Manhattan, after the Supreme Court’s rejection of the last president’s attempt to keep the documents protected.
A Vance spokesman Danny Frost confirmed that a lawsuit was filed Monday against Trump’s longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA, hours after the country’s Supreme Court rejected Trump’s appeal.
The subpoena claims Trump’s personal and corporate records dating back to 2011, including his tax returns. Trump set the modern precedent by refusing to disclose his tax returns to the public, even though he has presented two campaigns for the presidency.
A spokesman for the former president did not immediately comment. After the court allowed the transfer, Trump promised to “fight on” and said Vance was conducting a “fish expedition.”
The lengthy investigation is being closely monitored. Early reports indicate that the DA is investigating monetary payments on behalf of Trump to women who are claiming business with the real estate mogul. Trump has denied the allegations.
More recent court documents have indicated that Vance may be investigating Trump and his namesake, The Trump Organization, for possible banking and insurance fraud. Trump has repeatedly denied allegations of financial misconduct and accused investigators of having biased motives.
The battle over Trump’s tax documents has twice taken it to the Supreme Court. Both times, the panel refused to stop the decisions of the lower court standing at Vance. In July, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote an opinion in a 7-2 court in which he rejected Trump’s comprehensive argument that he was immune from criminal investigations at the state level while in office.
“In our legal system, ‘the public has the right to testify of everyone’. “Since the earliest days of the Republic, ‘every man’ has included the President of the United States,” says Roberts, who was appointed to the court by then-President George W. Bush.
After the verdict, Trump’s lawyers continued to fight the subpoena on the grounds that it was too broad and believed too badly, but lower courts rejected the allegations. In October, Trump’s lawyers again asked the Supreme Court to intervene, but the court wrote in a one-line order Monday that he would not do so.
Vance’s possession of Trump’s tax records does not guarantee that the public will ever learn what it contains. The records were obtained in connection with an investigation of the grand jury, and the law in the state of New York requires that the proceedings over the grand jury be confidential. It’s likely that the only way the public will see the records is if Vance eventually brings charges and includes portions of the records in levy documents.