Nov. 15 (UPI) — For the second day in a row, President Donald Trump on Friday asked the Supreme Court to intervene in his battle to keep his personal tax return documents private, this time in a case involving House Democrats.
His legal team applied for a stay in the high court in a challenge to a subpoena by the House oversight committee. The committee first requested Trump’s tax returns from accounting firm Mazars USA in April after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified the president manipulated the value of his assets for personal gain.
A full federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., sided with an earlier court’s ruling that the accounting firm must hand over the records.
Trump’s legal team has argued House lawmakers lack a legitimate legislative purpose for viewing his financial documents.
“For the first time in our nation’s history, Congress has subpoenaed the personal records of a sitting president from before he was in office,” Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said in a statement. “And, for the first time in our nation’s history, a court upheld a congressional subpoena to the president for his personal papers. Those decisions are wrong and should be reversed.”
The application comes one day after Trump appealed to the Supreme Court in another battle over his tax returns, this one involving New York City prosecutors.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance wants eight years of Trump’s records for his investigation into hush money payments he says Trump paid to two women to keep news of their extramarital affairs secret. One includes adult film star Stormy Daniels and the other Playboy centerfold Karen McDougal.
Last week, a federal appellate court ruled Trump’s tax returns aren’t immune to subpoena, but Trump’s legal team said the subpoena is “politically motivated.”
The appellate court said one of the reasons Vance’s subpoena is lawful is that it’s directed at Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA. The court noted that Vance’s subpoena seeks Trump’s private tax returns and financial information — items related to his private business, not his official capacity as president.
