Supreme Court temporarily blocks House Democrats from getting Trump tax returns [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily blocked the handover of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives panel.
• The Supreme Court will assess Trump’s emergency request filed on Monday.
• The House Ways and Means Committee sued Trump to force the disclosure of the tax returns “to the public for the sake of exposure.” 

Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily blocked the handover of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a Democratic-led congressional committee.

The order gave the Supreme Court time to assess the legal issues in Trump’s emergency appeal to the high court which was filed Monday.

The Treasury Department could have provided Trump’s tax records to the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday without the temporary hold.

Roberts ordered the panel to respond by Nov. 10. The chief justice handles emergency appeals from Washington, D.C., where the fight over the former president’s taxes has been ongoing since 2019.

Lower courts ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee has broad authority to obtain tax returns and rejected Trump’s claims that it was overstepping.

If Trump’s team was able to persuade the Supreme Court to delay the case, they could also delay a final decision until the start of the next Congress in January. If Republicans win in the midterms and regain control of the House, they could ditch the records request entirely.

The House Ways and Means panel first requested Trump’s tax returns in 2019 as part of a probe into the Internal Revenue Service’s audit program and tax law compliance by the former president. The committee is led by Democrat Richard Neal of Massachusetts.

Federal law says the Internal Revenue Service “shall furnish” the returns of any taxpayer to a handful of top lawmakers.

The Justice Department, under the Trump administration, had defended a decision by then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to withhold the tax returns from Congress. Mnuchin argued that he could withhold the documents because he concluded they were being sought by Democrats for partisan reasons. A lawsuit ensued.

The committee renewed the request — seeking Trump’s tax returns and additional information from 2015-2020. The White House said that the request was a valid one and that the Treasury Department had no choice but to comply. Trump then attempted to halt the handover in court.

Then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. obtained copies of Trump’s personal and business tax records as part of a criminal investigation. That case also went to the Supreme Court, which rejected Trump’s argument that he had broad immunity as president.

Trump had most recently sought the court’s intervention in a legal dispute stemming from the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in August. The court rejected that appeal.

Source: Reuters