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After years of refusing to release his tax returns, President Trump will now have to turn over eight years’ worth of personal and corporate documents to law enforcement.
A federal judge ruled Monday that Trump’s accounting firm will have to hand over the information to the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, who subpoenaed those records just last month. But Trump’s legal team then sued arguing that the president, by virtue of his station, cannot be subject to criminal investigations of any kind.
“The expansive notion of constitutional immunity invoked here to shield the President from judicial process would constitute an overreach of executive power,” wrote Judge Victor Marrero of Manhattan federal court in his decision Monday. “This Court cannot endorse such a categorical and limitless assertion of presidential immunity from judicial process.”
Read the 75-page decision here. Trump’s legal team filed an emergency appeal against the decision shortly after it was released.
At the center of the Manhattan district attorney’s fight to obtain Trump’s tax returns is his investigation into Trump’s financial relationship with his former lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen has previously testified that, during the 2016 presidential campaign, he made several payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about the relationship she said she had with him.
As part of that investigation, Vance is looking into whether Trump broke any laws in New York state related to those transactions.
Cover image: In this Friday, Oct. 4, 2019 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks during the Young Black Leadership Summit at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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