The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort by former President Trump's lawyers to block Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance from enforcing a subpoena for eight years of his personal and financial tax returns.
Why it matters: It was the last legal hurdle in the former president's long-running battle to shield his tax returns from prosecutors — and the second time the Supreme Court has dealt Trump a defeat in the case.
The big picture: Vance first subpoenaed Trump's accounting firm Mazars USA in 2019 as part of a criminal investigation into the Trump Organization, which began as a probe into hush-money payments made by Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen during the 2016 election.
- The New York Times reports that the investigation has intensified in recent months and that prosecutors are now examining potential tax and bank-related fraud.
- Trump has denied any wrongdoing, attacking the investigation by Vance as a political "witch hunt."
Between the lines: Trump had previously asserted that he had "absolute immunity" from criminal investigation as president and that Vance had no legal authority to subpoena records from his banks and accounting firms.
- The Supreme Court rejected that sweeping claim in July 2020, but sent the case back down to lower courts to allow Trump's lawyers to challenge the subpoena for other reasons.
- Trump's lawyers then claimed that Vance's subpoena was overbroad and amounted to political harassment — an argument that was rejected by an appeals court in October and brought back to the Supreme Court for the second time.
What they're saying: "The work continues," Vance tweeted Monday morning, minutes after the Supreme Court's decision to deny Trump's request for a stay.
The other side: Trump issued a lengthy statement hours later in which he railed against the Supreme Court and Vance, accusing the district attorney of a "fishing expedition" intended to silence the Americans who voted for him.
