Vince McMahon’s Lawyer Wrong To Withhold Court Documents

A court has ruled that Vince McMahon’s former lawyer should not have withheld documents from a federal grand jury.

In the summer of 2023, Vince McMahon was served with a grand jury subpoena for “documents related to any allegation of “rape, sex trafficking, sexual assault, commercial sex transaction, harassment or discrimination” against current or former WWE employees.”

Now, the Associated Press has reported that McMahon’s lawyer was also served with a subpoena by prosecutors in 2023. While they submitted many materials, they also submitted a log of 208 documents they were withholding due to attorney-client privilege.

However, three judges at the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in New York have now upheld a lower court ruling that said the privilege did not protect the documents due to an exception for “crime or fraud.”

The lower court judge determined that prosecutors had reasonable grounds to believe that McMahon and his lawyer illegally “circumvented” WWE’s internal controls and created false records to conceal employees’ claims and settlement agreements from the company.

In the appeals court opinion, McMahon was referred to only as the “former Chief Executive Officer of a publicly traded company,” but a person familiar with the matter confirmed to AP that it was the former WWE Chairman.

Status Of Grand Jury Investigation Into Vince McMahon Unclear

In January 2025, after the Securities and Exchange Commission found Vince McMahon failed to inform WWE’s board of settlement agreements totaling $10.5 million during his time with the company, he issued a statement claiming that “nearly three years of investigation by different governmental agencies” had come to an end and that it amounted to a “minor accounting error.”

Many took this to mean the grand jury investigation had also been completed. However, in their ruling on the withheld documents, the appeals court said that the case “concerns proceedings currently before a grand jury. At present, no indictments have been issued,” implying the investigation is ongoing.

AP reports that the US attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment on the matter, leaving the status of the grand jury investigation unclear.