President Trump
President TrumpReuters

The US Supreme Court has decided to allow a New York prosecutor to obtain former President Donald Trump's tax returns. The decision constitutes a loss for the former president, who had attempted to keep his financial records out of prosecutors' hands.

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a lower court's ruling ordering Mazars USA, Trump's long-term accounting firm to comply with a subpoena to turn over the documents to a grand jury convened by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.

“The work continues,” Vance, a Democrat said in a statement following the ruling.

The records will not be released to the public under grand jury rules.

Trump broke with tradition during his presidential term by not releasing his tax returns. His lawyers had appealed the order to release the documents, arguing that the investigation was overly broad and had been started in bad faith.

William Consovoy, a lawyer for the former president, wrote: "The subpoena is geographically sprawling, temporally expansive, and topically unlimited - all attributes that raise suspicions of an unlawful fishing expedition."

The documents relate to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and hush money he allegedly paid to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump.