Trump brings tax return case to Supreme Court again after losses in lower courts

President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to block lower court decisions that would give the Manhattan District Attorney’s office access to years of his income tax returns.

Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court asking the court to issue a stay on a grand jury subpoena demanding those tax returns and other financial records from his accountants.

The request is pending the filing of his planned request that the high court hear his appeal of the lower court rulings that allowed that subpoena.

If the Supreme Court agrees to hear his appeal, it will be the second time the court has taken the case.

Trump’s lawyers in their filing Tuesday said “there is a reasonable probabilty that” the Supreme Court will take the appeal.

Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. is seeking the tax returns and other records as part of an ongoing criminal investigation of the president’s company, the Trump Organization. Vance is known to be eyeing how hush money payments to women who say they had sex with Trump were accounted for by the company, and according to court filings also could be investigating possible tax crimes, as well as bank and insurance fraud.

The Supreme Court last summer rejected Trump’s argument that his financial records from the Mazars USA firm should be protected from the subpoena because of his status as president.

But the Supreme Court said Trump could make new arguments against the subpoeana with a federal district court in Manhattan.

A judge in that court ruled against the president after Trump’s lawyers argued that the subpoena was overbroad and issued in bad faith.

A federal appeals court then upheld that ruling last month.

Trump has refused for years to release his tax returns to the public, breaking more than four decades of precedent by presidents and White House aspirants. The president has said he will not release his returns while they are being audited by the IRS, but there is no bar on people disclosing their returns while under audit.

The New York Times last month published articles revealing that Trump has paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and no federal income taxes in other years spanning back a decade or more.

The expose also said that over the next four years, Trump faces debt repayments that he has personally guaranteed totaling more than $400 million.

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.