New York files new motion to dismiss Trump’s state tax return lawsuit

New York officials on Thursday filed a new motion to dismiss President Trump’s legal challenge to the state’s law that allows Congress to request his New York tax returns.

In the new document, the officials argue that Trump’s amended complaint in the case doesn’t change their position that the case shouldn’t take place in Washington, D.C.

“President Trump has spent his career hiding behind lawsuits, and this one is no different,” New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) said in a statement. “The president’s latest complaint is irrelevant, unreasonable, and factually inaccurate, which is why we believe this case deserves to be dismissed or otherwise moved to a New York court.”

{mosads}New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) last month signed a law, known as the TRUST Act, that would allow the chairmen of Congress’s tax committees to request public officials’ state tax returns from the commissioner of the New York Department of Taxation and Finance.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) has not requested Trump’s New York tax returns and may not end up doing so. He’s been more focused on trying to get Trump’s federal tax returns from the IRS.

Shortly after the New York legislation was enacted, Trump filed a lawsuit in federal court in D.C. against the Ways and Means Committee, James, and New York tax official Michael Schmidt, arguing the law violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

Earlier this month, the New York officials filed a motion arguing that the case shouldn’t be heard in federal court in D.C., and should either be dismissed or moved to federal court in New York.

Trump then filed a new version of his complaint, which included some new information that appeared designed to explain why the case should take place in D.C., such as that Schmidt had previously lived in D.C. and that James regularly attends events in D.C. and solicits campaign contributions from D.C. donors. When Trump filed his amended complaint, it mooted New York’s original motion to dismiss the case, prompting the New York officials to file a new version of the motion on Thursday.

In their new court filing, the New York officials argued that none of the additional information in Trump’s amended complaint about James’s and Schmidt’s ties to D.C. “bears any relationship to his sole First Amendment claim against the New York Defendants.”

Trump also argued in the amended complaint that most of the relevant conduct at issue in the case will take place in D.C. But the New York officials countered in their Thursday filing that the enactment of the TRUST Act in New York is the reason why Trump would allegedly suffer any possible injury.

“In short, Plaintiff’s newly-amended complaint does nothing to cure the fatal absence of any allegations that would support the [D.C.] Court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over the New York Defendants or a determination that this Court is a proper venue to hear a challenge to a New York statute permitting disclosure of New York state tax information,” the New York officials argued.

A hearing on the New York officials’ arguments about the D.C. federal court lacking jurisdiction is scheduled for Sept. 18, before Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, in D.C.

Under an order Nichols issued earlier this month, New York won’t provide any requested tax returns to the Ways and Means Committee until one week after he rules on the state’s motion.