US Supreme Court allows release of Donald Trump’s tax returns to New York prosecutor

The 74-year-old has fought on many fronts to keep his tax records secret

Credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg

The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for eight years of Donald Trump’s tax returns to be turned over to a New York state prosecutor, in a significant defeat for the former president.

Mr Trump’s tax records are not supposed to become public as part of the prosecutor’s criminal investigation, but the high court’s action is a blow to the 74-year-old because he has fought on many fronts to keep them secret. 

The court’s action is the culmination of a lengthy legal battle that had already reached the high court once before.

Mr Trump, the recently defeated Republican president, has called it "a fishing expedition" and "a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in history."

The Supreme Court waited months to act in the case. The last of the written briefs in the case was filed Oct. 19. But a court that includes three Trump appointees waited through the election, Mr Trump’s challenge to his defeat and a month after he left office before issuing its order.

The court offered no explanation for the delay, and the legal issue before the justices did not involve whether Mr Trump was due any special deference because he was president.

The court’s order is a win for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who has been seeking Mr Trump’s tax records since 2019 as part of an investigation. 

Mr Vance, a Democrat, had subpoenaed the records from the Mazars accounting firm that has long done work for Mr Trump and his businesses. Mazars has said it would comply with the subpoena, but Mr Trump sued to block the records’ release.

Mr Vance’s office had said it would be free to enforce the subpoena and obtain the records in the event the Supreme Court declined to step in and halt the records’ turnover, but it was unclear when that might happen.

The case involves a grand jury subpoena for more than eight years of Trump’s personal and corporate tax records. 

Mr Vance has disclosed little about what prompted him to request the records. In one court filing last year, however, prosecutors said they were justified in demanding the records because of public reports of "possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization."

Part of the probe involves payments to two women — porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal — to keep them quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign about alleged extramarital affairs with Trump. Mr Trump has denied the affairs.