Trump lawyers say they’ll fight subpoena for president’s tax returns

President Trump intends to fight a subpoena for his tax returns and financial records from the Manhattan district attorney after the Supreme Court rejected his claim that he’s immune to criminal investigation, the president’s lawyers told a judge on Wednesday.

In a status report filed with a federal district court in New York, Trump’s legal team said it has other objections to the district attorney’s subpoena aside from the one struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this month.

The move will surely draw out the proceedings in the lower court, and the president’s attorneys made clear that they intend to raise issues about whether District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s subpoenas are overly broad or relevant to a legitimate investigation. They argued that the case requires the two parties to develop a more thorough factual record.

“The President should not be required, for example, to litigate the subpoena’s breadth or whether it was issued in bad faith without understanding the nature and scope of the investigation and why the District Attorney needs all of the documents he has demanded,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 this month that the president does not have absolute immunity to investigative subpoenas like the one issued by Vance.

“In our judicial system, ‘the public has a right to every man’s evidence,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority decision. “Since the earliest days of the Republic, ‘every man’ has included the President of the United States.”

Roberts also wrote that a “President may avail himself of the same protections available to every other citizen, including the right to challenge the subpoena on any grounds permitted by state law, which usually include bad faith and undue burden or breadth.”

The court’s decision also held that subpoenas of a president’s private documents can be challenged on grounds that aren’t available to other citizens. Trump could argue that a specific subpoena is intended to influence his official actions or that compliance would impede his official duties, the Supreme Court ruled.

Trump’s lawyers said on Wednesday they intend to raise those arguments and possibly others. The two parties proposed that a federal judge set a deadline for July 27 for the president to file an amended lawsuit against Vance.

The court will hold a status conference in the case on Thursday.

–Updated at 12:41 p.m.