President Donald Trump lost the latest round in a battle to keep his tax returns private when a judge in the state of New York dismissed a complaint filed by Trump lawyers to block the release of his financial records, including eight years of business and personal returns, according to court order on Thursday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2020) President Donald Trump lost the latest round in a battle to keep his tax returns private when a judge in the state of New York dismissed a complaint filed by Trump lawyers to block the release of his financial records, including eight years of business and personal returns, according to court order on Thursday.
"The motion filed by defendant Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. in his official capacity as District Attorney of the County of New York, to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint of plaintiff Donald J. Trump is GRANTED, and the Second Amended Complaint is dismissed without prejudice. The motion filed by plaintiff Donald J. Trump for discovery is denied as moot; accordingly, this case is closed," the single-page order from US District Court in the Southern District of New York read.
The ruling allows Vance to enforce a 2019 subpoena for Trump's tax returns and other financial records as part of an investigation of the president's businesses.
The US Supreme Court in July rejected Trump's claim that a sitting president is protected from criminal investigations, prompting the president's lawyers to charge in a series of subsequent filings that the Vance investigation is overly broad and amounted to a fishing expedition.
Vance is reportedly investigating whether Trump broke any laws during the 2016 presidential campaign by making hush-money payments to two women who claimed to have had affairs with him.
Media reports suggest the Vance probe goes beyond Trump's personal and business taxes, as evidenced by separate subpoenas for Trump-related records from Deutsche Bank.
