Trump seeks Supreme Court aid in tax battle

Trump  asks Supreme Court to side  with him in tax battle

AFP. Washington President Donald Trump on Monday, Oct 12 asked the Supreme Court for the second time to block the New York prosecutor’s attempt to obtain his tax returns for nearly a decade.

In a document sent to the Supreme Court, Trump’s defense insists that Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus Vance’s request is “too broad” and in “bad faith,” and that releasing the documents would cause “irreparable harm” to the president.

If the prosecutor obtains the tax returns, they would remain in the hands of a grand jury that must decide whether to indict Trump, but Vance “has the legal means to publish them” at a time when the issue generates “intense political interest” in the presidential election, Trump’s lawyers wrote.

They asked the highest court to urgently suspend the delivery of the documents to the grand jury.

Trump plans to later formally ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the Manhattan appeals court ruling on October 7, which dismissed his request to prevent the Mazars accounting firm, which handles its taxes, from turning over its tax returns for 2011 to 2018, as required by Vance.

The prosecutor claims the documents in the framework of an investigation into the Trump Organization because he suspects tax fraud, insurance fraud, and accounting manipulations.

The former real estate mogul has always refused to release his tax returns, although in the 2016 campaign he promised he would. He is the first president since Richard Nixon who refuses to broadcast them.

Initially, Trump tried to prevent Mazars from turning over his tax returns, arguing that he had presidential immunity until the end of his term. But his request was rejected several times.

In July, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the request for immunity and ruled that the tax returns must be turned over to the prosecutor.

Despite that ruling, Trump took the case back to a New York district court. The court again agreed with the prosecutor, Trump appealed, the appeals court upheld the lower court ruling and now Trump has once again taken the case to the highest court.