President Trump Asks Federal Appeals Court To Keep Tax Returns From Manhattan District Attorney

President Trump’s legal team on Monday asked a federal appeals court to keep his tax returns from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., claiming it would cause the president irreparable harm. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Tuesday will hear arguments in the tax returns case.

Trump’s lawyers are also looking at getting the Supreme Court involved if the federal appeals court does not try to delay the release of the tax returns.

In July, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump was not immune from criminal probes while in the White House. Trump has been fighting against Vance’s subpoena for nearly a year.

Vance has issued a subpoena for eight years of Trump’s tax returns and financial documents from the president’s longtime accounting firm, Mazars LLC. Vance agreed to delay enforcement of the subpoena last week.

Vance is currently trying to investigate whether Trump was involved in alleged hush-money payments to women he allegedly had affairs with prior to the 2016 election. A recent court filing suggested that Vance is also investigating Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, for possible insurance and bank fraud.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has also revealed a state investigation into the Trump Organization and is currently trying to determine whether the company misled lenders and tax authorities by falsely inflating its assets. James filed a motion to compel Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, to testify under oath.

During a hearing before the House Oversight Committee in February 2019, the president’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, accused Trump of lying about his assets to suit his purposes.

“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes," Cohen said during the hearing.