Manhattan DA Agrees to Delay Enforcement of Subpoena for Trump Tax Returns

Manhattan DA Agrees to Delay Enforcement of Subpoena for Trump Tax Returns
President Donald Trump talks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Aug. 20, 2020. (Anna Moneymaker/Pool/Getty Images)
Janita Kan
8/24/2020
Updated:
8/24/2020

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has agreed to delay the enforcement of a subpoena for President Donald Trump’s tax returns and financial documents.

In a letter sent to Trump’s legal team on Aug. 22, the office of New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said the district attorney had agreed to temporarily delay the enforcement of his subpoena until after the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rules on Trump’s request to hold a lower’s court decision to dismiss his case while the appeal plays out in court.

The deal between the parties comes after the 2nd Circuit Court denied a request to immediately block the district court’s ruling, but the appeals court said it would hear arguments on the request for a stay pending appeal on Sept. 1.

Following the district court’s ruling, which allowed the Manhattan district attorney to enforce the subpoena, the parties agreed to temporarily delay the enforcement of the subpoena until Aug. 28.

The Aug, 22 letter, which was filed in the court on Monday, further delays the enforcement of the subpoena to give the 2nd Circuit Court time to decide on Trump’s request.

The president has been fighting Vance’s subpoena since 2019. The case went to the Supreme Court after lower courts denied Trump’s request for relief from the subpoena.

The Supreme Court ruled that Trump was not absolutely immune from state criminal processes but also opened the door for him to challenge Vance’s subpoena on other grounds.

Trump’s legal team filed a second challenge against the subpoena in late July, arguing that the subpoena was overbroad and issued in bad faith.

On Aug. 20, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero dismissed Trump’s latest bid to stop Vance’s subpoena for eight years of his tax returns and other financial documents from the president’s accountant.

Marrero characterized Trump’s newest challenge as a roundabout way for the president to invoke immunity from judicial processes. He said that the president’s move embodies “a novel application of presidential immunity to protect the executive branch from judicial process.”

“At its core, it amounts to absolute immunity through a back door, an entry point through which not only a President but also potentially other persons and entities, public and private, could effectively gain cover from judicial process,” the judge wrote.

He also rejected Trump’s request to hold his ruling until the appeal has been resolved.

Vance, a Democrat, is subpoenaing for Trump’s financial documents as part of a criminal grand jury probe.

Trump has characterized the subpoena as a “continuation of the witch hunt,” during remarks to the press on Aug. 20.

“There’s never been anything like it, where people want to examine everything you’ve ever done to see if they can find that there’s a comma out of place. No president has ever had to go through this,” he said.