A federal judge rejected the president’s argument that a subpoena seeking eight years of his tax returns was “wildly overbroad.”
A federal judge on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump latest effort to block the Manhattan district attorney from obtaining his tax returns, dismissing Trump’s arguments that the prosecutor grand jury subpoena was "wildly overbroad" and issued bad faith.
The ruling by Judge Victor Marrero of Federal District Court in Manhattan marked another setback for the president in his yearlong fight to block the subpoena.
The district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. a Democrat, has been seeking eight years of Trump personal and business returns and other financial records part of an investigation into the president’s business practices.
The Supreme Court ,in a landmark decision last month, denied Mr. Trump 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.
It has been known that Vance was investigating whether any New York state laws were broken when hush_money payments were made in the run up to the 2016 president election to two women who said that they had affairs with Trump.
The prosecutor defending their subpoena for Mr. Trump’s records cited undisputed “public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.” Mr. Vance office made it clear in court recently that it viewed the tax returns as central evidence in its investigation.
Vance subpoena for Trump tax returns was sent in August 2019 to the president accounting firm Mazars USA. Trump quickly filed suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan where he made his initial argument about immunity.
Marrero, in a 75_page decision last October, rejected that position, calling the argument that Trump was immune from criminal investigation “repugnant to the nation governmental structure and constitutional values.”
In that ruling Judge Marrero also said that barring more evidence from the president.He did not believe the district attorney was acting in bad faith.
Eventually the case reached the Supreme Court, which last month ruled against Mr. Trump's by a vote of 7 to 2. “No citizen not even the president is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.
Roberts said however that Trump's still could raise objections to the scope and relevance of the subpoena, which resulted in the president’s new arguments before Marrero.“The Mazars subpoena is so sweeping.” Trump lawyers last month told Marrero in court papers.“that it amounts to an unguided and unlawful fishing expedition into the president’s personal financial and business dealings.”
Mr. Vance’s office repeatedly accused the president of using delay tactics to keep from having to comply with a lawful subpoena.
Even if Mr.Vance were to obtain the tax records, they would be covered by grand jury secrecy rules and would most likely not become public.The records might surface in public only if charges were later filed and the records were introduced as evidence in a trial.
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