President Trump’s tax records are a big step closer to seeing the light of day — at least for prosecutors in a criminal case against the president and his company.
On Thursday, a federal judge threw out Trump’s latest lawsuit aimed at blocking Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s grand jury subpoena for eight years of financial records from the president’s business accounting firm.
The judge’s dismissal “marked another setback for the president in his yearlong legal fight to block the subpoena,” says the New York Times. “The conflict has already reached the Supreme Court once and could end up there again….”
Just last month the Supreme Court issued an opinion “that determined Trump, as sitting president, was not immune from state court actions or criminal investigation,” reports the Washington Post.
In other words: the president of the United States is not above the law.
Trump’s team says it will appeal.
Vance’s investigation was originally aimed at hush-money payments Trump made to women with whom he allegedly had sexual affairs, including porn actress Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model.
But earlier this month, Vance’s office disclosed that it is also investigating Trump and his company for “alleged bank and insurance fraud” — far more serious charges.
That court filing by Vance’s team, says Axios, “pointed to media reports about “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.”
The judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, had ruled previously against Trump’s claims of “absolute immunity” — a ruling backed by the Supreme Court decision.
In Thursday’s 103-page opinion, Marrero wrote that the legal argument made by the president’s lawyers “is as unprecedented and far-reaching as it is perilous to the rule of law and other bedrock constitutional principles on which this country was founded and by which it continues to be governed.”
It’s now possible that the tax records will be in prosecutors’ hands before the Nov. 3 election, or shortly after it.
But Marrerro’s ruling still isn’t the end of the legal fight — not quite.
Trump’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, told Bloomberg in a text message that “We will appeal.”
And even assuming Vance does get the documents, Bloomberg says, “they will still be covered by grand jury secrecy laws. The public might only see the records if prosecutors bring charges based on them.”
