1:45 p.m. ET, May 12, 2020
New York lawyer shoots down Trump attorney's argument
From CNN's Kara Scannell
President Trump’s attorney argued that if the Supreme Court allows the grand jury subpoena for Trump’s financial records it would “weaponize” 2,300 local district attorneys, many of whom are elected officials, to go after a president.
Carey Dunne, the general counsel of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, sought to shoot that down, stating, “There’s really no empirical basis in history for this, this apocryphal prediction” of a “parade of horribles” laid out by Trump’s lawyer.
“As a practical matter this notion that there are 2,300 prosecutors out there writing with subpoena pads open, there’s just no basis to think that an army of local prosecutors like that would even have jurisdiction over a president especially for private conduct,” Dunne said.
Dunne went on to add, “Here, New York City, of course, has a particular connection to the Trump Organization and its financial transactions because it’s headquartered here. It’s not likely that more than one or many states much less 2,300 counties, whatever had that connection to a president’s private conduct.”
The New York County District Attorney is investigating possible illegal tax and financial transactions that have been raised in news reports concerning actions of the New York-based Trump Organization and its executives.
How many local district attorneys could whip out their grand jury pads? It’s unclear. Trump owns business in a handful of states and counties, including properties and golf courses in Florida, Illinois, California, Virginia and New Jersey.