A federal judge on Thursday cleared the way for a New York prosecutor to get President Trump’s tax returns, rejecting a last-ditch attempt by his lawyers to block a subpoena issued to his accounting firm.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero’s ruling echoes his prior decision in the case, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last month.
The high court returned the case to Marrero so Trump’s lawyers could get another chance to challenge the subpoena issued by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.
Trump’s lawyers immediately appealed the decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
"Justice requires an end to this controversy," Marrero wrote in his 103-page ruling.
Trump was attempting to block Vance from obtaining eight years of his financial and tax records as part of a criminal investigation into his business dealings and hush-money payments made to two women who claimed they had affairs with the president years before he was elected.
Vance first issued his subpoena to Mazars USA, the president's longtime accounting firm, last year, but Trump challenged the request in federal court, arguing he was entitled to "absolute immunity" from state criminal proceedings while in office.
The federal district court and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the president, leading to his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. In May, the high court ruled 7-2 that Vance could access Trump's financial records but sent the case back to the lower courts for further proceedings. The Supreme Court rejected Trump's assertion of absolute immunity from state criminal subpoenas but allowed the president to challenge the validity of the subpoena on other grounds.
(The Associated Press, CBS News contributed to this report.)
