NEW YORK: The US Supreme Court on Monday allowed the release of Donald Trump’s tax records to criminal prosecutors, rejecting a last-ditch bid by the former president’s lawyers to keep them secret.
Trump, 74, has been waging a protracted legal battle to prevent his tax records from being handed over to New York prosecutors probing hush payments to women and possible fraud.
The nation’s highest court denied the request filed by lawyers for Trump without comment, paving the way for the documents to be handed over to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.
The prosecutor, a Democrat, has been fighting for over a year to obtain eight years of Trump’s tax returns as part of an investigation into the ex-president’s finances.
Monday’s ruling concerns a subpoena that Vance had issued to Trump’s accountants Mazars USA in August 2019 ordering it to furnish documents stretching back to 2011.
“The work continues,” Vance said in a three-word statement issued after the ruling.
Vance’s probe was initially focused on payments made before the 2016 presidential election to two women who claim they had affairs with Trump, including porn star Stormy Daniels.
But the state-level investigation is also now examining possible allegations of tax evasion, and insurance and bank fraud.
Trump, who left the White House last month, called the investigation “a continuation of the greatest political witch hunt in the history of our country.”
“The Supreme Court never should have let this ‘fishing expedition’ happen, but they did,” he said in a statement following the ruling.
US presidents are not required by law to release details of their personal finances but every US leader since Richard Nixon has done so.
Trump repeatedly said he would release them pending an audit but ultimately broke with the tradition.
Vance’s investigators have interviewed Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who received a three-year prison term after admitting making hush payments to the two women.
The ex-lawyer had testified to Congress that Trump and his company artificially inflated and devalued the worth of their assets to both obtain bank loans and reduce their taxes.
If Trump were charged and convicted he could face a possible jail term. Unlike federal offenses, state crimes are not subject to presidential pardons.
Investigators also recently interviewed employees of Deutsche Bank, which has long backed the former president and the Trump Organization, US media reported.
They spoke to staff at Trump’s insurance broker Aon, too.
Vance’s investigation is taking place behind closed doors in front of a Grand Jury.
It is unclear if and when it will lead to a prosecution, which would be the first of a former US president.
In July, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s argument that as a sitting president he was immune from prosecution.
Trump’s lawyers then challenged the scope of the requested documents, saying it was too broad.
Ahead of the November 3 election, The New York Times alleged that Trump had avoided paying federal taxes in 11 out of the 18 years for which it had obtained returns.
The newspaper also reported that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, a claim the former president denies.
New York state’s Attorney General Letitia James is also investigating allegations of bank fraud and insurance fraud through civil proceedings.
Trump’s legal troubles may not end there.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said that as a civilian Trump “is liable for everything he did while he was in office.”
At his historic second impeachment trial, the US Senate acquitted Trump of inciting the crowd that stormed the US Capitol in January, but McConnell suggested Trump could face criminal and civil action over the riot.
In February, prosecutors in Georgia opened an investigation “into attempts to influence” the presidential election in the state.
Trump had pressured officials to overturn his loss in the key battleground.
US Supreme Court allows release of Donald Trump’s tax records to prosecutors
https://arab.news/58wye
US Supreme Court allows release of Donald Trump’s tax records to prosecutors
- Donald Trump has been waging a protracted legal battle to prevent his tax records from being handed over to New York prosecutors
Counter protesters chase off conservative influencer during Minneapolis immigration crackdown
MINNEAPOLIS: Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement though not yet deployed to city streets.
There have been protests every day since the Department of Homeland Security ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers.
Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-ICE demonstration, saying on social media beforehand that he intended to “burn a Qur’an” on the steps of City Hall. But it was not clear if he carried out that plan.
Only a small number of people showed up for Lang’s demonstration, while hundreds of counterprotesters converged at the site, yelling over his attempts to speak and chasing the pro-ICE group away. They forced at least one person to take off a shirt they deemed objectionable.
Lang appeared to be injured as he left the scene, with bruises and scrapes on his head.
Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. Lang recently announced that he is running for US Senate in Florida.
In Minneapolis, snowballs and water balloons were also thrown before an armored police van and heavily equipped city police arrived.
“We’re out here to show Nazis and ICE and DHS and MAGA you are not welcome in Minneapolis,” protester Luke Rimington said. “Stay out of our city, stay out of our state. Go home.”
National Guard ‘staged and ready’
The state guard said in a statement that it had been “mobilized” by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to support the Minnesota State Patrol “to assist in providing traffic support to protect life, preserve property, and support the rights of all Minnesotans to assemble peacefully.”
Maj. Andrea Tsuchiya, a spokesperson for the guard, said it was “staged and ready” but yet to be deployed.
The announcement came more than a week after Walz, a frequent critic and target of Trump, told the guard to be ready to support law enforcement in the state.
During the daily protests, demonstrators have railed against masked immigration officers pulling people from homes and cars and other aggressive tactics. The operation in the deeply liberal Twin Cities has claimed at least one life: Renee Good, a US citizen and mother of three, was shot by an ICE officer during a Jan. 7 confrontation.
On Friday a federal judge ruled that immigration officers cannot detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who are not obstructing authorities, including while observing officers during the Minnesota crackdown.
Living in fear
During a news conference Saturday, a man who fled civil war in Liberia as a child said he has been afraid to leave his Minneapolis home since being released from an immigration detention center following his arrest last weekend.
Video of federal officers breaking down Garrison Gibson’s front door with a battering ram Jan. 11 become another rallying point for protesters who oppose the crackdown.
Gibson, 38, was ordered to be deported, apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision. After his recent arrest, a judge ruled that federal officials did not give him enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked.
Then Gibson was taken back into custody for several hours Friday when he made a routine check-in with immigration officials. Gibson’s cousin Abena Abraham said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told her White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ordered the second arrest.
The White House denied the account of the re-arrest and that Miller had anything to do with it.
Gibson was flown to a Texas immigration detention facility but returned home following the judge’s ruling. His family used a dumbbell to keep their damaged front door closed amid subfreezing temperatures before spending $700 to fix it.
“I don’t leave the house,” Gibson said at a news conference.
DHS said an “activist judge” was again trying to stop the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.”
“We will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
Gibson said he has done everything he was supposed to do: “If I was a violent person, I would not have been out these past 17 years, checking in.”
