The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for a second time backed a subpoena issued in New York’s investigation into President Trump’s financial conduct.
The subpoena is facing a second round of legal challenges from President Trump after the Supreme Court this summer said that being the sitting president did not give Trump immunity from state criminal investigations. Trump now is challenging the subpoena on grounds that are in theory available to any normal defendant. The subpoena was issued to his accounting firm Mazars USA and it seeks his tax returns among other financial materials.
The Second Circuit’s Wednesday opinion upholding the subpoena queued up the opportunity for the Supreme Court to take another look at its legality. As part of an agreement between Trump and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance — whose office is leading the investigation — the appeals court put on hold the enforcement of the subpoena until the Supreme Court has a chance to decide whether it wants to review it again.
The appeals court roundly rejected the arguments that Trump is making this time about the legality of the subpoena, which included arguments that the subpoena was overbroad and issued in bad faith.
The President has endured a spree of court losses in his efforts to stymie the Vance subpoenas. But his strategy has been effective in delaying the investigation.The Mazars subpoena was issued more than a year ago, in August 2019, after the Trump Organization refused to turn over the requested materials.
In shooting down Trump’s claim that the subpoena was overbroad, the appeals court gave credence to the indications from New York that its investigation is now broader than just a focused look at the hush money payments doled out to women who claimed have extramarital trysts with the President. The court also rejected Trump’s claim that the Mazars subpoena was overbroad because it sought a wider universe of documents than was initially requested from the Trump Organization.
“It is far from reasonable to infer that a single subpoena would define the entire scope of a grand jury’s investigation, particularly in complex financial investigations,” the court said.
The court was similarly unconvinced by Trump’s arguments alleging that the subpoena was issued in bad faith..
Read the opinion below:
