The Latest on Manhattan DA’s Trump Investigation

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can we start — hi, Jeffrey. Can we start on, before we get to your book, on the latest, as I led in, the Manhattan district attorney, the subpoena for eight years of tax records and other documents, and what President Trump’s lawyers are saying? I think they have called it illegal harassment. Just tell me why this is important. Why is the Manhattan DA doing it now?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the Manhattan district attorney is doing a criminal investigation of the president. We don’t know exactly for what crimes. It’s a secret grand jury investigation, like all grand jury investigations. But this is a case that has already been to the United States Supreme Court, and the Manhattan district attorney won. So, I don’t think it’s a question of if the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, is going to get these records. But I do think there is the possibility for some delay. The important point to note, as a public matter, is that, even if Vance gets these documents, they will not be released to the public, perhaps ever, because they will be only used by the grand jury. So, it’s not like one of the great mysteries of the Trump era, what’s in his tax returns, is going to be solved for the public. But these prosecutors, who are not subject to the United States Department of Justice, not under the supervision of William Barr, the attorney general, whether they can proceed with their criminal investigation.

AMANPOUR: So, quickly, you basically said it’s gone already to the Supreme Court, and the Manhattan DA won. Just explain for new readers exactly what that means.

TOOBIN: Well, it means that the prosecutors are going to get these documents. Now, this is sort of the end of the legal skirmishing about that subject. But I don’t have any doubt, given the Supreme Court’s opinion, that Cyrus Vance and his prosecutors will get these documents about the president’s personal financial history. And they will then be able to use them to investigate whether any — the president or anyone else committed any crimes. I don’t want to prejudge that question. I don’t know if the president committed any crimes. But these documents, which Congress has looked for, for a long time, unsuccessfully, and what Mueller chose not to look at, these prosecutors are going to see them, and we will — as the president likes to say, we will see what happens.