Trump Wins Another Delay in Turning Over Tax Returns

President Trump on Tuesday won another delay in the long-running legal battle over whether he must turn over eight years of tax returns to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which subpoenaed them a year ago in a criminal investigation focused on Mr. Trump, his business and his associates.

In a brief order, a federal appeals court in New York said it would temporarily block a grand jury subpoena issued by the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat, while it considers Mr. Trump’s arguments that the request was “wildly overbroad” and politically motivated.

The ruling is the latest development in the president’s aggressive effort to keep his tax returns and other financial records out of the hands of prosecutors, Congress and others — a dispute that has reached the United States Supreme Court once and is likely to end up there again.

With the election looming, the ruling means that as a practical matter prosecutors, even if they are ultimately successful, will not receive Mr. Trump’s records for at least another month, and perhaps longer if the president seeks a review in the Supreme Court.

Mr. Vance’s office has suggested in court papers that it has been investigating hush-money payments made shortly before the 2016 presidential election to two women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Mr. Trump, as well as possible financial and insurance fraud by the president and his business, the Trump Organization, whose headquarters are in Manhattan.

A year ago, Mr. Trump sued in federal court to block Mr. Vance’s subpoena for his tax records, which was issued to his accounting firm, Mazars USA, arguing before a Manhattan judge that a sitting president was immune from criminal investigation.

After months of litigation, the Supreme Court in July rejected Mr. Trump’s claim of blanket immunity by vote of 7 to 2, but said the president could return to the lower court and raise objections on other grounds, like the scope and relevance of the subpoena.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers went back before the Manhattan judge, Victor Marrero of Federal District Court, and argued that the subpoena was issued in bad faith and was “so sweeping” that it amounted to “an unguided and unlawful fishing expedition into the president’s personal financial and business dealings.”

Prosecutors have argued the long delay has increased the chance that the time limit for charging possible crimes will expire. That in effect would grant the president the kind of immunity from a local prosecution that the Supreme Court said he was not entitled to, they have said.

In the end, Judge Marrero rejected the president’s new arguments in a 103-page decision, and also denied his request for an emergency stay to temporarily block Mr. Vance from enforcing the subpoena while the president appealed the decision.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers then immediately asked for a stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, arguing that the president’s returns should not turned over before appellate judges had time to consider the substance of Mr. Trump’s appeal.

Mr. Vance’s office accused Mr. Trump of using delay tactics, writing in court papers filed on Thursday the president had engaged in a “nearly yearlong effort to frustrate compliance with a lawful subpoena.”

“Justice requires an end to this controversy,” prosecutors wrote.

The ruling on Tuesday came several hours after a hearing before a three-judge panel of the appeals court and covered only the narrow issue of the stay — whether Mr. Vance should be able to immediately obtain the tax records from Mazars, the accounting firm.

The judges were Robert A. Katzmann, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and John M. Walker Jr. Judge Katzmann was appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton, Judge Lohier by President Barack Obama and Judge Walker by President George H.W. Bush.