New York prosecutors say Trump does not have 'sweeping immunity,' can't keep tax returns secret

(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 24 September 2019

Prosecutors in New York pushed back on Monday against an argument from President Trump's attorneys that a sitting president cannot be subjected to a criminal investigation.

Trump is trying to block a grand jury subpoena for eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns, and sued the New York County District Attorney's office last week. His attorneys say this subpoena is unconstitutional and should be suspended until Trump is out of office.

The prosecutors, investigating hush-money payments made in 2016 to two women who said they had affairs with Trump, sent the subpoena to Trump's accounting firm, Mazars USA. In their Monday court filing, prosecutors said Trump does not have "sweeping immunity" and is "seeking to invent and enforce a new presidential 'tax return privilege,' on the theory that disclosing information in a tax return will necessarily reveal information that will somehow impeded the functioning of a president, sufficiently to meet the test of irreparable harm." 

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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