The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that President Trump’s accounting firm must hand over eight years of corporate tax returns to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, upholding a subpoena for the documents submitted by the D.A. earlier this year.
The court rejected Trump’s claim to presidential immunity in its ruling.
“The President has neither demonstrated that he is likely to prevail on, nor raised sufficiently serious questions going to the merits of, his immunity claim, and so he is not entitled to preliminary injunctive relief,” read the decision by Judges Robert Katzmann, Denny Chin, and Christopher Dorey.
Trump has shown signs that he intends to comply with the court order and the case will likely proceed to the Supreme Court.
Vance’s office agreed to wait ten days to act on his subpoena to give Trump time to petition the U.S. Supreme Court in the case. The court currently has a 5-4 conservative majority, with two justices appointed by Trump.
The circuit court’s ruling upholds a subpoena for Trump’s tax returns filed by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance on September 16. Vance filed the subpoena as part of an investigation into hush-money payments made by the President to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential elections.
Daniels has accused the president of engaging in sexual intercourse with her soon after the birth of his youngest son, Baron. Trump has vehemently denied the allegation. Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen was found guilty of campaign finance violations after he sent Daniels hush money, and was sentenced to three years in prison.
While federal authorities have concluded their investigation into the incident, Vance is looking into whether Trump violated New York state campaign finance laws with the transactions.
Trump has challenged Vance’s investigation several times in court. He has also sued his own accounting firm, Mazars LLP, to prevent the release of his financial records.