No 'Fishing' In Trump Tax Return Case

Donald J. Trump, in his individual capacity, brought a civil action in the Southern District of New York, seeking to enjoin enforcement of a Grand Jury subpoena issued by a New York State Grand Jury to Mazars, an accounting firm, seeking President Trump's tax returns by Cyrus Vance, the New York County District Attorney. (For non-New Yorkers, New York County encompasses the island of Manhattan, and a tiny little enclave in the Bronx called Marble Hill. The Office was led for years by the legendary Robert M. Morgenthau, and is best known to non-lawyers as the setting for the TV show Law & Order.) Although the relief requested was, in effect, quashing the subpoena (and enjoining its enforcement), the case was brought under the Civil Rights Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 1983. As Judge Marrero drily noted: "Although the President is asking the Court to quash the Mazars' Subpoena, he has filed a complaint seeking relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 …. In short, the parties are litigating the validity of the subpoena through a procedural device not typically used for that purpose." Id., at 11. The Second Circuit noted this strangeness, adding in a footnote that "[b]oth parties appear to assume that the President's unique status allows him, alone, to bring a §1983 in federal court rather than a motion to quash in state court proceedings," adding "[w]e express no view on that question."

The President made a number of assertions which, he alleged, constituted a violation of 18 U.S.C. §1983, but the first was the rhetorical staple: "… the subpoena is overly broad because it seeks documents that have no relation to the grand jury's investigation, covers a timeframe far exceeding that of the investigation, and otherwise amounts to an arbitrary fishing expedition." Id. at 7 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 20, 2020).