The Supreme Court handed Trump a significant defeat on Monday morning by declining to halt investigators from getting their hands on his tax returns.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance can now require Trump’s accountants to turn over the records that the president has steadfastly refused to surrender to prosecutors or Congress.
Vance is seeking Trump’s personal and business tax records covering eight years for a grand jury investigation of hush money payments and other financial transactions.
The investigation began by looking at the $130,000 hush money payments made by fixer Michael Cohen, but in recent court filings, Vance has hinted that the scope of his work may be broader than just the hush money payments.
“The investigation concerns a variety of business transactions and is based on information derived from public sources, confidential informants, and the grand jury process” and could include falsifying business records, insurance fraud, and tax fraud, Vance told the appeals court.
Now that the Supreme Court has cleared the way for Vance to enforce the subpoena, the president has exhausted his legal options to block it. The full tax return documents, or portions of them, would become public only if Vance brings criminal charges at some future date and seeks to introduce them as evidence.