Trump Raises New Objections to Subpoena Seeking His Tax Returns

Days after the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a defeat to President Trump, clearing the way for the Manhattan district attorney to seek his tax returns, his lawyers on Wednesday renewed their efforts to block or at least narrow access to the records.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote to the federal judge in Manhattan who originally presided over the case, saying they plan to argue that district attorney’s subpoena was too broad and politically motivated.

The president and the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, have been locked in a battle over the records for almost a year.

The district attorney issued the subpoena to the president’s accounting firm in August 2019, seeking eight years of his corporate and personal tax returns as part of an investigation into hush-money payments made to an adult film actress who said she had had an affair with Mr. Trump. The president has denied the affair.

Mr. Cohen, who is serving a three-year sentence at a federal prison in Otisville, N.Y., implicated the president, saying in court that he had acted on Mr. Trump’s orders.

After federal prosecutors concluded their investigation last year, Mr. Vance’s office began examining whether New York State laws had been broken when Mr. Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed Mr. Cohen. The subpoena was issued as part of that inquiry.

In October, Judge Marrero, in a 75-page opinion, rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that he was immune from all investigation, calling it “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values.”

After a federal appeals court panel unanimously upheld the ruling, the president sought review in the Supreme Court.