The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has taken possession of former president Donald Trump's tax returns and a wealth of other financial data deemed central to prosecutors' ongoing criminal case, officials confirmed Thursday.
The transfer, involving millions of pages of records, occurred Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the former president’s last-ditch bid to shield his financial records from the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D).
In a statement, a spokesman for Vance’s office, Danny Frost, confirmed that Trump’s longtime accounting firm, Mazars, had complied with the subpoena after 18 months of delay while the former president’s lawyers fought tooth and nail to keep the information private. The transfer occurred within hours of the Supreme Court’s one-line order, Frost said.
“As we have maintained throughout this process, Mazars will comply with all its legal and professional obligations,” a spokesman for Mazars said Thursday.
[Supreme Court ends Trump’s bid to shield his tax returns and effort to challenge election losses]
A team of analysts in the district attorney’s office, including some from an outside forensics accounting firm, FTI Consulting, have been at the ready for months to dissect the records and scour for any evidence of criminal activity at the Trump Organization or by its executive employees. The group includes Trump, three of his adult children — Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — and Allen Weisselberg, the company’s longtime chief financial officer.
Vance’s investigators are evaluating whether the values of property assets in the Trump Organization portfolio were manipulated to gain tax advantages or favorable loans and insurance rates under false pretenses.
The records are voluminous, dating back eight years. Vance’s examination could take months.
[Manhattan prosecutor hires forensic accounting experts as Trump criminal probe escalates]
Cyrus Vance, Jr. wearing a suit and tie: Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. responds to a question during a news conference in New York.© Frank Franklin II/AP Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. responds to a question during a news conference in New York.
Trump has rigorously and at times angrily denied any wrongdoing, labeling the district attorney’s investigation a “fishing expedition” and political hit job orchestrated by Democrats.
Trump’s lawyers had sought to block the records’ release to Vance by asking the Supreme Court to issue a stay, a legal order to pause proceedings while his legal team mounted an appeal challenging the subpoena’s legality. The appeal has not been filed. His attorneys initially argued that Trump was immune to a state-level investigation while he was in office, but the Supreme Court rejected that claim in July.
Trump faces unprecedented legal jeopardy for a former president.
Vance’s investigation is one of two known criminal probes involving him. The other was opened this month in Atlanta, where the Fulton County district attorney is investigating Trump’s controversial conversations with Georgia state officials amid his failed bid to overturn the election results there.
The New York state attorney general is conducting a separate investigation into the Trump Organization’s business and real estate activities.
The former president also faces defamation lawsuits brought separately by two women who have accused him of sexual assault. His niece Mary L. Trump is suing him and his siblings over an inheritance dispute.
He’s also being sued by the former tenants of apartments his family once owned, and by people who say they saw little to no profit after joining a multilevel marketing organization touted by Trump and his children.
David A. Fahrenthold in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright © Persona Publications LLC copyright@2023