Judge slaps down Trump's push to stall Manhattan prosecutor from getting his taxes

President Donald Trump and his attorneys have fought vigorously to prevent the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. from having access to his financial information. But this week, District Judge Victor Marrero rejected Trump’s request to delay Vance’s access to the president’s tax returns.

In a subpoena, a grand jury asked for eight years of Trump’s financial records from his accounting firm, Mazars USA, and Trump has been fighting that subpoena with a lawsuit. Trump’s legal team has argued that the demand is “overbroad,” was issued “in bad faith” and amounts to “harassment,” but Marrero disagreed.

In his ruling, Marrero wrote, “The court finds that the president has not sufficiently pled that the subpoena is overbroad or was issued in bad faith on this basis.”

On Thursday, journalists Shayna Jacobs and David A. Fahrenthold reported in the Washington Post that Trump’s attorneys had filed an emergency motion asking for a delay in enforcing that subpoena so that they could appeal it. But Marrero has allowed the subpoena to be enforced sooner rather than later.

Vance’s office believes that Trump and his lawyers are trying to undermine their investigation of the president’s financial activities and keep the investigation from moving forward.

Trump and his lawyers, meanwhile, have said that without a stay for the grand jury subpoena, they will be deprived of any appellate review. But Marrero rejected that argument, writing: “As for the president’s claim that injunctive relief is required to preserve appellate review, the court finds this argument entirely unpersuasive. The president claims that without a stay, he will be deprived of any appellate review…. ignoring the fact that he has, in fact, already sought relief from every level of our federal judicial system, and that relief was denied at every turn.”