The Supreme Court on Monday paved the way for a New York City prosecutor to review former President Donald Trump’s taxes.
The court in an unsigned order denied Trump’s request for the justices to halt a lower court ruling instructing him to turn over materials to Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney. Trump’s tax returns, although not visible to the public, will be subject to scrutiny in the office’s investigations of whether Trump committed bank fraud while he helmed the Trump Organization.
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The Supreme Court last year ruled that Trump was not immune from a subpoena of his tax returns from New York prosecutors. However, it blocked House Democrats investigating Trump from viewing the documents. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts for further review.
In the court’s majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that even the dissenting justices agreed that Trump was not immune from a subpoena in New York.
“We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” Roberts wrote.
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At the investigation’s heart is the allegation that Trump and lawyer Michael Cohen paid off two women to keep quiet about affairs they had with Trump. The documents, which include other material aside from Trump’s tax returns, span from 2011 to 2019.
The order comes as a blow to Trump, who previously decried the investigation as a “witch hunt.”
