Legal setback for Trump on his tax returns
The Supreme Court refused to overturn a ruling by a federal judge, which ordered the surrender of eight years of tax and banking returns to a New York attorney. A serious setback for the former president, who fought hard to protect these documents.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a new attempt by Donald Trump to protect his financial documents. The American institution has issued an order requiring the former president's accountants to hand over his records to a New York prosecutor.
This decision will allow the latter, the Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus Vance, to continue his investigations against the Republican billionaire who put him at risk, in the long term, of indictment.
The Supreme Court had been requested by the lawyers of the ex-New York magnate. They demanded the annulment of the decision of a federal judge who ordered the delivery of eight years of tax and banking declarations to Cyrus Vance, who has been asking for them for months.
The Court had already ordered Donald Trump in July 2020 to transmit these documents to the prosecutor, but the lawyers for the magnate had re-requested it to contest the scope of the documents requested. "The work continues", simply reacted Cyrus Vance in a statement.
Possible allegations of tax evasion
Initially centered on payments made, before the presidential election of 2016, to two alleged mistresses of the billionaire, the investigation of Cyrus Vance, investigated behind closed doors before a grand jury, now also examines possible allegations of tax fraud, insurance fraud, or bank fraud.
According to US media, investigators recently interviewed employees of Deutsche Bank - long the financial backer of Donald Trump and his holding company, the Trump Organization - and his insurance company, Aon.
They also re-interviewed the president's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is serving a prison sentence. He had told Congress that Trump and his company were artificially inflating or reducing the value of their assets, to alternately obtain bank loans or reduce their taxes.
Trump denounces a "witch hunt"
If these suspicions were true and Donald Trump was indicted, they would expose the former president to possible imprisonment. Unlike federal offenses, violations of state laws cannot be pardoned by the President of the United States.
New York State Democratic Attorney Letitia James is also investigating the allegations of bank fraud and insurance fraud in civil proceedings. Donald Trump did not immediately react to the Supreme Court's decision on Monday. But he has in the past called the investigation "the worst witch hunt in US history."
