Posted on 10/07/2020 8:17:25 AM PDT by Red Badger
Key Points
A federal appeals court in Manhattan rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to block enforcement of a grand jury subpoena that demands years of his income tax returns from his accountants.
But court suspended enforcement of that subpoena by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., giving Trump time to ask the Supreme Court, for a second time, to step into the case and block the subpoena permanently.
Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow said he will ask the Supreme Court to stay the unanimous decision against the president by the three-judge panel on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
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A federal appeals court in Manhattan on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to block enforcement of a grand jury subpoena that demands years of his income tax returns from his accountants.
But the appeals court suspended enforcement of that subpoena by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., giving Trump time to ask the Supreme Court, for a second time, to step into the case and block the subpoena permanently.
Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow later said Wednesday morning that he will ask the Supreme Court to stay the unanimous decision against the president by the three-judge panel on U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
This is the second time that the same appeals court has rejected Trump’s request to deny Vance access to tax returns dating back to 2011 by upholding a lower Manhattan federal court ruling.
Trump lost an earlier appeal of a similar ruling when he successfull asked the Supreme Court to review the case.
The Supreme Court this summer said that Trump did not have an “absolute” right to prevent his accounting firm Mazars USA from complying with the subpoena just because he is president.
But the high court also at the same time had allowed Trump to raise new objections with a Manhattan federal court judge, who had rejected his first effort to stop the subpoena from being enforced.
However, the judge quickly denied Trump’s new arguments that the subpoeana was overbroad an issued in bad faith. That loss triggered Trump’s second appeal, which was denied Wednesday.
Vance is seeking tax returns related to the president and the Trump Organization and related entities as part of a criminal investigation of Trump’s company.
Court filings suggest that the probe is not only eyeing hush money payments made shortly before the 2016 presidential election to two women who said they had sex with Trump, but also possible tax crimes, as well as insurance and bank fraud by the company in connection with the valuation of Trump-owned assets.
Vance’s office already said he would not seek to enforce the subpoena, which was issued in August 2019 by a grand jury, to allow Trump time to exhaust his appeals.
The Supreme Court is not required to take any appeal of a lower court decision.
In its opinion Wednesday, the panel of judges briskly brushed aside Trump’s claim that the Mazars subpoena was “overbroad and was issued in bad faith.”
“We find that the claim of overbreadth is not plausibly alleged for two interrelated reasons,” the appeals panel wrote.
The panel said that Trump’s “bare assertion that the scope of the grand jury’s investigation is limited only to certain payments made by” his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who was one of two women who said she had sex with Trump, “amounts to nothing more than implausible speculation.”
“Second, without the benefit of this linchpin assumption, all other allegations of overbreadth — based on the types of documents sought, the types of entities covered, and the time period covered by the subpoena, as well as the subpoena’s near identity to a prior Congressional subpoena — fall short of meeting the plausibility standard,” the court said.
“Similarly, the President’s allegations of bad faith fail to raise a plausible inference that the subpoena was issued out of malice or an intent to harass. Accordingly, we affirm” the lower court ruling.
The panel was comprised of the judges Pierre Leval and Robert Katzman, both of whom were appointed to the 2nd Circuit by President Bill Clinton, and Raymond Lohier, who was appointed to the appeals court by President Barack Obama.
Vance’s office declined to comment on the ruling.
Trump’s lawyer, a White House spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.
This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
” but his lawyer will ask Supreme Court to stay ruling”
Roberts hates Trump, 4-4 lower court stands.
Roberts hates Trump, 4-4 lower court stands.
*************
He doesn’t much like his supporters either.
Maybe his appeal to the USSC will fail but if so it can and most probably will take many months for his accountants to gather the necessary documents given they span such a wide time frame. Then of course many of the documents get lost or difficult to find quickly.
Roberts hates Trump, 4-4 lower court stands.”
Thanks for dragging out the SC vote Linda. The rats would have seated their pick by now and would have a 5-4 court.
Clearly. However we are living in a post-connotational USA. When governors nationwide can suspend the 1st amendment at will and not one federal court does a damned thing then you know that assuming the government will honor the constitution is at best a risky assumption.
Especially the hyper-politicized judicial branch we have these days because the GOP has let the dems dominate the process for putting people on the bench for decades. They have ensured over 30 years that Dem presidents get to appoint hard core leftwing activists while the GOPe ensures that left-leaning 'moderates' are the best a GOP president can get onto the bench.
Meant post-constitutional USA.
Why go to all this trouble. Cyrus Vance can just call up the NYTimes. They seem to have all of Pres. Trump’s tax returns available.
Absolutely right. The Dems have a party that fights for them. We don’t. “Our party” is a bunch of cowards.
I knew what you meant...................
A political Obama kangaroo court in Manhattan on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s effort...
Fixed it for them.
How they hell can they demand his PRIVATE tax returns?
There is not a crime there are investigating, they are just trying to go on a FISHING expedition.
Yep this IS exactly what should happen what is good for the goose is good for the gander, stalling, lost documents, a little shredding (just like Hillary’s emails) SCREW THEM!!
We have an IRS to monitor federal tax returns and I’m sure NY has a state version of the IRS. All this DA stuff about Trump’s taxes is just “Let’s Hate Trump”.
This appeals ruling is by a 3 judge panel... TWO CLINTON JUDGES AND ONE OBABA JUDGE.
Such an unexpected decision. /sarc
Trump should go full En Banc to the 2nd circuit first where he would have a better chance, the 3 appellate judges here were Obama and Clinton appointees. Then if needed take it to SCOTUS, by then ACB should be confirmed.
I have to wonder he has not requested an en banc. Can he do that if the SC goes 4-4 on the stay? If so surely that will put it past the election.
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