NEW YORK — New York City prosecutors have issued a subpoena for President Donald Trump’s tax returns as they investigate his role in hush-money payments to a porn star, a new report says.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office demanded eight years of the president’s tax returns — as well as those for his company, the Trump Organization — from his accounting firm, Mazars USA, The New York Times reported Monday.
The subpoena is part of a local probe of payments meant to keep the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels quiet about her alleged affair with Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to the Times. Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney, pleaded guilty last year to making the payments at then-candidate Trump’s direction.
The prosecutors’ demand comes amid efforts by Democrats in Congress to obtain Trump’s tax returns, which he has refused to release in a break with longstanding tradition for presidential candidates. New York State lawmakers passed a law in May that would allow any of three congressional committees to obtain Trump’s state returns; the president is reportedly fighting the law in court.
Staff from Vance’s office also visited Cohen in federal prison as part of their investigation, which was opened last month, the Times reported. Trump Organization lawyer Marc L. Mukaskey has called the probe “harassment of the president, his family and his business, using subpoenas as weapons,” according to the paper.
Read The New York Times’s full report here.