Trump Sues Manhattan D.A. as State Seeks President’s Tax Returns

Trump Sues Manhattan D.A. as N.Y. Seeks Tax Documents

20 Sep 2019, 03:47 PM IST

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump sued Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. after the prosecutor demanded eight years of the president’s tax returns in a probe of whether the Trump Organization falsified business records.

In the lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, Trump said the subpoena issued to his accounting firm, Mazars USA, seeking his tax returns is unconstitutional and asked a judge to declare it invalid. Trump said the subpoena should be blocked until he has left office, because sitting presidents aren’t subjected to the criminal process.

“The framers of our Constitution understood that state and local prosecutors would be tempted to criminally investigate the president to advance their own careers and to advance their political agendas,” Trump’s lawyers said in the lawsuit. “And they likewise understood that having to defend against these actions would distract the president from his constitutional duties.”

Trump Sues Manhattan D.A. as State Seeks President’s Tax Returns

There are legal barriers against a federal court interfering in state judicial proceedings, as federal courts are not supervisors of state courts, said Harry Sandick, a former federal prosecutor who is now with the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in New York.

“Even assuming that the president cannot be indicted while in office, it does not follow that his business and associates are likewise immune from investigation,” Sandick said. “The complaint makes light of the idea that ruling in their favor would elevate the president above the law, but it certainly seems as if the president views himself as above the law.”

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero scheduled a hearing for Sept. 25. Vance’s office agreed not to enforce the Mazars subpoena until then.

The president is fighting demands for his tax records on several fronts. House Democrats, citing an authority to request the records under a 1920s law, are seeking his tax returns. Trump sued to block that demand and is also seeking a court order to block Congress from getting his state returns from New York, as a newly enacted state law would allow.

Trump’s backers are in court in California, challenging the state’s requirement for presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to be placed on a primary ballot.

Trump is also appealing orders by federal judges in New York and Washington that would allow three House committees -- financial services, intelligence and oversight -- to obtain his records from Deutsche Bank AG, Capital One Financial Corp. and Mazars.