Donald Trump is not entitled to details of tax returns inquiry, says Manhattan district attorney

The Manhattan district attorney’s office said Friday that President Donald Trump was not entitled to learn more about the scope of its criminal investigation into his business dealings, rejecting Trump’s latest effort to block a subpoena for his tax returns.

The office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., wrote in a pair of new court filings that Trump should be treated like any other recipient of a subpoena, who is typically unable to access details of secret grand jury proceedings.

The filing came in response to Trump’s renewed efforts this month to stop Vance’s prosecutors from accessing eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

Earlier this week, Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing that the subpoena was too broad and amounted to illegal harassment. They wrote a letter to a Manhattan federal judge asking for a hearing to discuss whether Vance’s office should be forced to disclose the justifications for the subpoena.

Vance’s office said Friday that Trump was essentially complaining that prosecutors had never publicly revealed the full scope of the investigation. Grand jury proceedings are, by law, conducted in secret.

In limited circumstances, the recipient of a subpoena may force more details about the investigation to be disclosed through a specific legal process — but only after offering evidence that a subpoena was issued in bad faith, the office said. Even in that case, the target of the investigation likely would not learn the details, and the information would not become public.

Trump’s lawyers said the subpoena was so broad that it was tantamount to a political fishing expedition. Prosecutors had demanded tax documents dating to 2011.

In the letter earlier this week, Trump’s lawyers argued that the prosecutors should be required to show how each item requested in the subpoena was relevant to their investigation and within their jurisdiction.

Vance’s office has accused the president’s legal team of using delay tactics to slow the investigation until the statute of limitations on any potential crimes runs out.

The office suggested in a court filing that it was investigating the president and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud, a much broader investigation than prosecutors had acknowledged in the past.