Trump files new effort to block Manhattan DA subpoena for tax records

Lawyers for President Donald Trump on Monday doubled down on their efforts to block Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. from obtaining his tax records from the president’s accountants with a grand jury subpoena.

Their new filing in Manhattan federal court objecting to that subpoena came weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision that Trump did not have an unqualified immunity while serving as president to prevent a state prosecutor from obtaining his records as part of a criminal probe.

That ruling left the door open for Trump to argue that the subpoena should be thrown out, or limited, on other grounds.

In their filing Monday, Trump’s lawyers said that subpoena for the tax returns and other records from the accounting firm Mazars USA is “wildly overboard,” and “is not remotely confined to the grand jury investigation that began in 2018” at the direction of Vance.

The filing said that “the subpoena demands voluminous documents that relate to topics and entities far beyond the District Attorney’s limited jurisdiction under New York law.”

“This is not a properly tailored subpoena for the President’s records,” the filing argues.

Trump’s lawyers also claim that the subpoena “was issued in bad faith.”

They said in the filing that Vance “knew when he issued it — and he has since admitted — that the subpoena was not designed to meet the needs of the grand jury.”

“It was drafted by a congressional committee purportedly to investigate issues of national concern. In other words, the District Attorney issued a grand-jury subpoena he knew was overbroad and sought irrelevant records,” the lawyers wrote.

“That the District Attorney dubiously claims he did this for ‘efficiency’ reasons does not save the subpoena from invalidation. It confirms that he lacked a good-faith basis and that the subpoena amounts to harassment of the President.”

Vance is seeking Trump’s tax records for an investigation of whether, at the least, the president’s company improperly accounted for a hush money payment that Trump’s then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

Daniels claims she had sex with Trump one time more than a decade ago. Another woman who says she had an affair with Trump, Playboy model Karen McDougal, received a hush money payment in 2016 from the publisher of The National Enquirer, a Trump-friendly supermarket tabloid.

Trump denies having had sex either woman.

Cohe pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations for facilitating the payments to both Daniels and McDougal.

Records show that Cohen was reimbursed for the payment to Daniels by the Trump Organization and by Trump personally.

This is breaking news. Check back for updates.