Trump calls New York City ‘hellhole’ after court upholds subpoena from city prosecutors

President Trump on Thursday derided New York City as a “hellhole” as he complained about a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Manhattan district attorney’s subpoena to obtain his tax returns.

“This is purely political. I win at the federal level and we won very decisively and so they send it to New York,” Trump said of the pursuit of his financial records, which he has shielded from public view.

“You know what’s going on in New York,” he continued. “Everyone’s leaving. It’s turned out to be a hellhole, and they better do something about it because people are leaving New York. But this is a political witch hunt that just continues.”

The Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision on Thursday morning sided with New York state prosecutors seeking eight years of Trump’s financial documents, including his personal and corporate tax returns.

The court, in a separate ruling, declined to grant Congress access to records subpoenaed by a trio of Democratic-led House committees. The two rulings still make it unlikely Trump’s tax returns will be made public prior to the 2020 election.

Trump has refused to release his tax returns, breaking with decades of precedent set among presidential candidates. He has repeatedly claimed since his 2016 campaign that his taxes are under audit, an assertion the White House maintained on Thursday.

The IRS has stated that this does not prohibit the president from making the documents public. 

The New York case arose after Cyrus Vance Jr., the Democratic district attorney for Manhattan, obtained a grand jury subpoena for Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA. Vance’s office is looking into payments made to silence two women who allege they had affairs with Trump, including adult-film star Stormy Daniels, before he became president.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and his private attorneys filed multiple lawsuits to prevent Mazars and two additional third-party financial institutions — Deutsche Bank and Capital One — from disclosing Trump’s financial records.

The president himself was born in Queens, N.Y., and is a lifelong New York City resident, though he changed his legal address to Florida last year. He has openly feuded with Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) throughout his time in office, while he has met with Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) multiple times in recent months amid the coronavirus pandemic.