Stormy Daniels continues to pose legal problems for Donald Trump, a full 18 months after she filed a lawsuit against him over a $130,000 “hush money” payment, and six months after that lawsuit was finally dismissed, as AVN.com reported.
On Monday, The New York Times reported that Manhattan, New York, District Attorney Cyrus Vance is investigating the payoff to Daniels—a payoff designed to keep her quiet over a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump—and as part of that investigation, Vance slapped longtime Trump accountants Mazars USA with a subpoena for eight years of income tax returns for the Trump Organization, and for Trump personally.
Breaking with a practice that has held since the Watergate era, Trump has repeatedly refused to make his tax returns public, first claiming that he was prevented from releasing them because they were supposedly under “audit.” But more recently, Trump has successfully used legal maneuvering to prevent Congress from obtaining his tax returns, though under the law, congressional committees are entitled to do so.
But the Daniels case may provide the most likely opening so far to force the release of Trump’s tax returns. While federal prosecutors, who are under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department, run by Trump-appointed Attorney General William Barr, claimed earlier this year that they had “concluded” their investigation into the hush money deal, the Manhattan district attorney is not answerable to Barr.
Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen is now serving a three-year federal prison term, as AVN.com reported, in part for felony campaign finance violations related to his role in the hush money payoff.
Even if Trump allows Mazars to comply with the subpoena, which appears unlikely, the tax returns would likely not become public except in the case of a criminal trial. The Vance subpoena is part of a grand jury investigation, which falls under secrecy laws, according to a CNN report.
In Congress, the House Judiciary Committee has announced that it will open its own investigation into the Daniels hush money payments. But while Daniels has said that she is willing to testify under oath before the committee, House Democrats say—for reasons that are difficult to comprehend—that they are unlikely to call Daniels as a witness.
Photos By White House / Shealah Craighead Public Domain & Adam Bielawski / Wikimedia Commons
