Trump's 'Protracted Criminal Activity' Probed By Manhattan DA

NEW YORK CITY — President Donald Trump's tax returns could shed light on accusations of "extensive and protracted criminal conduct," including fraud, at his company, according to a new court filing.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance made the filing Monday as part of a fight over Trump's personal and corporate tax returns.

Trump's attorneys had argued Vance's subpoena for eight years of those returns was too broad for a probe they claimed only centered on "hush money" payments related to Stormy Daniels.

Not so, Vance's lawyers wrote in his latest filing.

"But this Court is already aware that this assertion is fatally undermined by undisputed information in the public record," they wrote.

The filing alluded to "alleged insurance and bank fraud by the Trump Organization and its officers" as well as "public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct" at the company.

The subpoena grew out of a criminal probe into Trump former attorney, Michael Cohen, who arranged for payments to two women — Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal — during the 2016 presidential election. Both Daniels and McDougal claimed to have had affairs which Trump, who denied their stories.

Trump fought all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing a sitting president cannot be investigated for criminal conduct. The Supreme Court rejected that argument and sent it back to a lower court, where Trump's lawyers asserted the subpoena was too broad for a probe into the payments to Daniels and McDougal.

Vance's attorneys shot back that there were "public allegations of possible criminal activity at Plaintiff’s New York County-based Trump Organization dating back over a decade."

"These reports describe transactions involving individual and corporate actors based in New York County, but whose conduct at times extended beyond New York’s borders," the filing states. "This possible criminal activity occurred within the applicable statutes of limitations, particularly if the transactions involved a continuing pattern of conduct."