Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance will not run for a fourth term even though that may preclude him from completing the investigation into former President Donald Trump.
Vance, 66, plans to retire from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office at the end of 2021, and the decision was mostly made before the Trump case began, he said. Eight Democratic candidates have already begun campaigning for the job.
His office in February obtained millions of pages of documents related to the former president’s tax returns from January 2011 to August 2019 after the Supreme Court denied Trump’s final push to keep his records sealed.
“It turned out to be tougher than I thought it would be,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than a politician who doesn’t know when to leave.”
Vance’s departure date likely means that the investigative phase of the case will be completed under him and thus a decision as to whether to bring criminal charges. However, it’s unlikely he’d still be in his position by the time a trial began.
At the time of the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump sent out a statement via tweemail calling it “a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country.”
“So now, for more than two years, New York City has been looking at almost every transaction I’ve ever done, including seeking tax returns which were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S.,” he continued. “The new phenomenon of ‘headhunting’ prosecutors and AGs — who try to take down their political opponents using the law as a weapon — is a threat to the very foundation of our liberty.”
Vance’s pursuit of Trump’s records is part of an inquiry into the former president’s real estate properties. In 2019, the district attorney’s office served a grand jury subpoena on Mazars, Trump’s personal accounting firm, demanding financial and tax records from the president and his businesses.
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In October 2019, a federal judge in New York ruled that Trump must hand over his tax return documents for an investigation into hush money payments made to women with whom he is accused of having affairs.