NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. fought for a year and a half to get access to former President Donald Trump\u2019s tax records.<\/p>\n
Now, thanks to a\u00a0U.S. Supreme Court ruling, he will soon have them. But what will that mean for the Democrat\u2019s investigation into Trump\u2019s business affairs?<\/p>\n
Former prosecutors say the trove of records could give investigators new tools to determine whether Trump lied to lenders or tax officials, before or after he took office.<\/p>\n
\u201cProsecutors look for discrepancies in paperwork. For example, if Trump told the IRS he\u2019s broke and lenders that he\u2019s rich that\u2019s just the type of discrepancy they could build a case around,\u201d said Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor who worked on a wide range of white collar cases as Vance\u2019s chief of asset forfeiture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese documents are a very important piece of the jigsaw puzzle,\u201d Levin said.<\/p>\n
Whether Trump\u2019s records will contain evidence of a crime is uncertain. The former president has argued for years that he broke no laws and has been\u00a0unfairly targeted\u00a0by Democrats for political reasons.<\/p>\n
Here is a look at where the tax records might be helpful, and where they might not help much, in the district attorney\u2019s investigation:<\/p>\n
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Trump went to extraordinary lengths to keep his federal income tax returns from becoming public, but those aren\u2019t the only valuable documents included in this haul.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s accounting firm, Mazars USA, is supposed to turn over not only the final versions of Trump\u2019s tax returns, but also draft versions of those returns and \u201cany and all statements of financial condition, annual statements, periodic financial reports, and independent auditors\u2019 reports\u201d held by the company.<\/p>\n
That could give state prosecutors an \u201copen book\u201d into Trump\u2019s finances, said Adam D. Citron, a former state prosecutor and partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron. \u201cIt\u2019s really the kitchen sink.\u201d<\/p>\n
Examining those other documents could be key to determining whether Trump or his companies gave tax authorities different information about his income than they presented to other officials, like banks and business partners.<\/p>\n
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When the district attorney\u2019s investigation first began, one of the initial subpoenas sent to the Trump Organization asked for information about payments Trump\u2019s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, arranged to women who had claimed to have had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump.<\/p>\n
Cohen has said Trump\u2019s company\u00a0later reimbursed him\u00a0for one of those payments, to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, disguising it in the form of a legal fees.<\/p>\n
It isn\u2019t clear, though, whether Trump\u2019s tax records will add much to that part of the probe. The New York Times, which obtained years of Trump\u2019s tax data, wrote that it contained \u201cno new revelations\u201d about the payment to Daniels and didn\u2019t include any itemized payments to Cohen.<\/p>\n
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The district attorney\u2019s office has been investigating some of the arrangements Trump made to reduce his tax bill. Data in the returns could be essential in analyzing whether any of those maneuvers crossed legal lines.<\/p>\n
One of the breaks under scrutiny is the one that Trump got for\u00a0donating part of his Seven Springs estate, north of New York City, to a conservation trust. Some experts have questioned whether Trump overvalued the land to get a bigger break than he deserved.<\/p>\n
Investigators have already subpoenaed and received many documents related to the land deal. Trump benefited from a similar conservation donation in California.<\/p>\n
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Vance\u2019s office hasn\u2019t disclosed the full nature of its inquiry. But in court filings, prosecutors have pointed to news articles that questioned whether Trump had chronically exaggerated the value of his assets to banks and insurance companies. The Associated Press reported last month that Vance\u2019s office\u00a0recently interviewed Cohen\u00a0for hours, asking him, among other things, about Trump\u2019s relationship with Deutsche Bank, his biggest and longest standing creditor.<\/p>\n
One Washington Post story cited by prosecutors detailed how various Trump Organization financial disclosures inflated the number of home lots for sale at a California golf course, the acreage at one of his vineyards and the number of stories in Trump Tower while excluding information about debts at his Chicago and Las Vegas hotel projects.<\/p>\n
Tax records will only be one tool prosecutors will use to examine whether any of those statements amounted to fraud.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to look at valuations and property values,\u201d Citron said of state prosecutors. \u201cThey\u2019ll look at the billings of attorneys to see what their expenses were for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s ruling does not ensure the public will see Trump\u2019s financial records. For now, they are protected by grand jury secrecy rules. Even if charges are brought in the case, those documents likely would be heavily redacted if filed into the record.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven then, I\u2019m sure there will be tons of litigation about that,\u201d Citron said.<\/p>\n