Trump slams ‘hideous witch hunt’ after judge rejects bid to hide tax returns
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday called an investigation into his financial records led by New York prosecutors part of “the most hideous witch hunt in the history of our country.”
His remarks came after a federal judge earlier Thursday ruled that the president must turn over his tax returns to Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. — Trump’s second loss in that court — after the Supreme Court kicked the decision to a lower body.
Sitting in the Oval Office with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, Trump told reporters he would likely appeal the decision for a second time to the Supreme Court, the highest legal body in the nation.
“This is a continuation of the witch hunt, the greatest witch hunt in history. There’s never been anything like it, where people want to examine every deal you’ve ever done to see if they can find that there’s a comma out of place,” he said.
“No president has ever had to go through this, the Supreme Court shouldn’t have allowed this to happen,” he said.
The Supreme Court last month ruled that a sitting president is not immune from a grand jury subpoena — giving Vance’s office the green light to proceed with its quest to obtain eight years of Trump’s tax returns.
But the high court handed the ultimate decision to a lower court, and on Thursday, US District Judge Victor Marrero for the second time shot down the argument from Trump’s legal team that Vance’s subpoena was a “wildly overbroad” fishing expedition.
“Well, the Supreme Court said if it’s a fishing expedition, you don’t have to do it, and this is a fishing expedition,” Trump told reporters, countering Marrero’s ruling.
“We’ll probably end up back in the Supreme Court. But this is just a continuation of the most hideous witch hunt in the history of our country,” he said.
“This is a continuation of the most disgusting witch hunt in the history of our country,” he continued.
Vance’s office last September subpoenaed Trump’s longtime accounting company Mazars USA for eight years of his financial records and tax returns as part of an investigation into whether he paid hush money before the 2016 election to several women with whom he allegedly had affairs.
The payments would be a potential violation of campaign finance laws.
The Supreme Court also dismissed subpoenas from Congress seeking the financial records and tax returns of the president and his family, arguing it was an overreach and threatened the separation of powers. That case has also been sent back to the US District Court.