NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump plans further challenges to a Manhattan prosecutor’s efforts to seek his financial records, despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the pursuit.
According to a joint filing by lawyers for Trump and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, the president plans by July 27 to file a complaint raising arguments against Vance’s grand jury subpoena, which Trump said the nation’s highest court allowed him to make.
Vance countered that most of these arguments have already been rejected in the litigation, and Trump deserves no special treatment because he is president. The district attorney agreed not to enforce the subpoena through July 27.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan has scheduled a Thursday hearing on the matter.
The case concerns a subpoena last August to Trump’s accounting firm Mazars USA for eight years of personal and corporate tax returns, related to Vance’s criminal probe into Trump and his Trump Organization.
That probe was spurred by news about hush money paid before the 2016 election, including to buy the silence of adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal about their claimed relationships with Trump, which he denies.
Vance had prevailed on July 9 at the Supreme Court, which rejected Trump’s claim he was immune from criminal probes while in the White House and could block the release of his records.
“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 Roberts wrote.
The court separately rejected the Democratic-led House of Representatives’ effort to see many of the records Vance sought.
Its decisions likely mean the records will not become public until at least after the Nov. 3 election.
In Wednesday’s filing, Trump’s lawyers said the Republican president may argue that Vance’s subpoena was too broad, or that enforcement might “impede his constitutional duties.”
They may also argue that Vance, a Democrat, pursued the subpoena to harass Trump, or retaliate against his policies.
Vance has denied acting in bad faith, and said the motives for a subpoena are not something courts should normally examine.
The case is Trump v Vance et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 19-08694.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jonathan Oatis and Tom Brown)
