NEW YORK - A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked the immediate release of President Donald Trump’s tax returns and other financial records to the Manhattan district attorney - a temporary win for the president in his legal battle to prevent the local prosecutor’s office from obtaining a trove of documents in connection with his ongoing criminal probe.
The ruling came as one judge on the court’s three-member panel pressed a lawyer for District Attorney Cyrus Vance about the scope of Vance’s grand-jury investigation of the president’s private business activities, saying a subpoena for eight years of Trump’s tax returns appears to be “really very broad,” as his lawyers have argued.
Tuesday’s order establishes the timeline for Trump’s broader appeal of a lower-court ruling last month that said the district attorney is entitled to request the president’s personal financial records from his accounting firm. Arguments are set for Sept. 25, and the court’s order will remain active pending the outcome of that hearing, it said in announcing the decision.
Vance’s office is investigating hush money paid before the 2016 election to two women who said they had affairs with Trump several years prior, assertions the president has denied. The district attorney’s team - buoyed by a major Supreme Court ruling in July rejecting Trump’s initial claim that, as president, he is immune from such investigations - has suggested it is also looking at potential bank and insurance fraud related to Trump’s company.
Trump’s new position is that Vance’s request is politically motivated harassment, a fishing expedition that reaches too far and therefore is invalid.
Earlier Tuesday, John Walker, one of panel’s three judges, asked a lawyer for Vance’s office how one would determine whether its request for Trump’s records is “very broad and might engage in some fishing.”
“It seems to me it’s really very broad when you’re asking for activities in New York, Dubai and so forth,” the judge said.
Carey Dunne, general counsel for the district attorney’s office, said the investigation of Trump’s business activities is secret and should remain so, but he suggested it was common for Vance’s team to make such wide-reaching requests.
“There’s nothing unusual about an office like ours asking for information about out-of-state or foreign transactions,” Dunne told the panel, because many major banks and financial institutions are located in New York. “The company at the center has headquarters in Manhattan; that’s why we have jurisdiction,” he added, apparently referring to the Trump Organization.
A spokesman for Vance declined to comment.
Trump has predicted that the case will land back at the Supreme Court. In rejecting his initial argument this summer, the high court invited the president’s legal team to challenge Vance’s records request on other grounds.
The district attorney’s office, citing impending statutes of limitations that risk hindering its pursuit of criminal charges if warranted, has sought expedited review from the courts. Vance’s team has argued that Trump’s new arguments are a delay tactic and that he’s attempting to impede its investigation from moving forward.
During arguments Tuesday morning, the president’s lawyer William Consovoy said “irreparable harm” for Trump would result should the subpoena be enforced before the case is fully litigated and the appeals process is exhausted.
The case arrived at the appeals court last month, after U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled in favor of Vance, saying the law presumes subpoenas are issued for a valid purpose, unless proved otherwise. “Justice,” the judge wrote in his opinion, “requires an end to this controversy.”
Even if Vance’s subpoena is enforced and the district attorney’s office receives Trump’s financial records, there is no guarantee that the public will see them, because the documents would be subject to secrecy rules governing grand-jury investigations. It’s possible that they might emerge as evidence should the district attorney move to charge someone with a crime. Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, has said it would comply with its legal obligations.