After a multiple-year legal fight that culminated in a Supreme Court decision, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is now in possession of almost a decade of former President Donald Trump‘s tax records. Vance and his office are investigating Trump’s potential involvement in misleading lenders about his assists to secure better loans and will likely scrutinize Trump’s payment of hush-money to women in the past.
Vance’s office formally subpoenaed Trump’s accountant firm Mazars USA for financial records dating back to 2011. Trump’s first challenge of the subpoena was in July 2020 while he was still president. Trump and his lawyers initially argued that state prosecutors cannot investigate a sitting president, but the Supreme Court disagreed.
Vance and his team, now including former mob prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, have recently leaned into a thread of Trump dealings surrounding Trump’s private Westchester estate, Seven Springs. Vance and his team are investigating an environmental conservation arrangement Trump made in 2015, which significantly lowered taxes on the massive estate. Trump allowed an easement of 158 acres of Seven Springs to go to a conservation land trust and subsequently had $21 million deducted from his income taxes. The deduction, however, was based on a valuation of Seven Springs that real estate experts and economists agree supremely overvalued the estate. Local government evaluators later concluded Trump’s Seven Springs was worth no more than $20 million total.
Vance’s office recently subpoenaed New York engineer Ralph Mastromonaco who said in a statement that he was part of the team who presented Trump’s plans to local planning boards. Mastromonaco handed over all requested documents without delay and said Wednesday that, “I really know absolutely nothing about this whole mess.”
Vance has also had more than seven meetings with Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen. Vance’s interest in Cohen may be central to the case the DA builds against Trump as Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to making secret hush-money payments to women Trump had alleged affairs with. Cohen also told Congress in 2018 that the Trump Organization misled people on their financial position, so they could evade taxes or get better loans – this is already a pillar of Vance’s investigation.
