Donald Trump has been dealt a devastating blow in his fight to keep his tax records secret.
America’s Supreme Court today cleared the way for a New York prosecutor to obtain the former President’s financial returns.
The move ends Trump’s years-long repeated attempts to stop investigators from inspecting his declarations to the taxman.
The ex-US leader consistently argued the subpoena issued by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance was overboard and issued in bad faith.
“The work continues,” Vance said in response to the Supreme Court order.
The ruling means a grand jury investigation into alleged hush-money payments and other issues will no longer be hampered by Trump’s fight to keep the documents secret.
The documents will be subject to grand jury secrecy rules that restrict their public release.
Vance is investigating whether the Trump Organisation falsified business records to conceal hush payments to two women.
Adult actress Stormy Daniels was paid £100,000 not to discuss claims she had sex with Trump just months after First Lady Melania had given birth to son Barron.
She was handed the money by Trump’s then-personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who later was reimbursed by the US leader.
Former Playboy model Karen McDougal claimed she had an affair with the President before he entered the White House.
She was paid £116,000 by the Trump-friendly publisher of The National Enquirer tabloid.
Both payments were made shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has denied the allegations he had affairs with Daniels and McDougal.
The records are held by Trump’s longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA, which has said it would comply with a court order.
The papers are thought to contain details about the US leader’s business practices, his bankruptcies and where his money has come from.
In October 2018, Trump was accused of taking part “in dubious tax schemes” including “outright fraud”, that are alleged to have greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents.
The President, whose lawyers denied the claims, has always boasted he is a self-made billionaire.
But in a bombshell investigation conducted by the New York Times, it claimed Trump, who was made a millionaire at the age of eight, received the equivalent today of at least $413 million (£294 million) from his father’s real estate empire.
The paper claimed its information was based on thousands of tax returns and financial records and interviews with former employees and advisers to Trump’s father.