Oct. 13 (UPI) — President Donald Trump’s attorneys filed an emergency application Tuesday with the Supreme Court asking the court for a stay on a New York grand jury subpoena for his tax returns.
The request is pending filing of Trump’s expected request that the Supreme Court hear his appeal of the lower court rulings that allowed the subpoena.
The filing also marks the second time Trump has appealed to the Supreme Court to block Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. from obtaining eight years of his tax records.
Vance Jr. is seeking the tax returns as part of a probe into allegations of “insurance and bank fraud by the Trump Organization and its officers,” and accusations of “hush money” payments to cover up Trump’s sexual affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal ahead of the 2016 election.
Trump’s lawyers said Tuesday that “there is a reasonable probability that” the Supreme Court will take up the appeal.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a landmark 7-2 decision over the summer that the presidency does not protected Trump from the subpoena directed at his accounting firm, Mazars USA, but said that Trump could make arguments against the subpoena with a federal district court in Manhattan.
Last week, a federal appeals court ruled against Trump in his attempt to stop a New York grand jury from seeing years of income tax returns, upholding a lower court ruling that denied Trump’s request to block a grand jury subpoena for the records Vance Jr. is seeking.
Trump had claimed that the subpoena seeking his tax records was overly broad and politically motivated.
Tuesday’s filing seeks to temporarily halt last week’s ruling that upheld the enforceability of the grand jury subpoena since Trump intends to file a formal appeal.
